Calcutta Mosaic: Essays and Interviews on the Minority Communities of Calcutta (Anthem Press India)

CALCUTTA MOSAIC

Anthem South Asian Studies Other titles in the series Rajan, S Irudaya, Risseeuw, Carla and Perera, Myrtle (eds.) Institutional Provisions and Care for the Aged (2008) Paranjape, Makarand (ed.) Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India (2008) Kumar, Ashwani Community Warriors: State, Peasants and Caste Armies in Bihar (2008) Palit, Amitendu and Bhattacharjee, Subhomoy Special Economic Zones in India: Myths and Realities (2008) Roy, Kaushik (ed.) 1857 Uprising: A Tale of an Indian Warrior (2008) Sharma, Anita and Chakrabarti, Sreemati (eds.) Taiwan Today (2007) Gaur, Ishwar Dayal Martyr as Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh (2007) Bandyopadhyaya, Jayantanuja Class and Religion in Ancient India (2007) Chakrabarti Radharaman India’s External Relations in a Globalized World Economy (2007) Sinha, Dilip Kumar Natural Disaster Reduction (2007) Fraser, Bashabi (ed.) Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter (2006) CSIRD Towards BIMSTEC–Japan: Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (2006) Banerjee, Sashanka S India’s Security Dilemmas: Pakistan and Bangladesh (2006) Chattopadhyaya, Braj Studying Early India (2006) Sen, Satadru Colonial Childhoods (2005) Bates, Crispin and Basu, Shubho (eds.) Rethinking Indian Political Institutions (2005) Brosius, Christiane Empowering Visions (2005) Mills, Jim (ed.) Subaltern Sports: Politics and Sport in South Asia (2005)

CALCUTTA MOSAIC Essays and Interviews on the Minority Communities of Calcutta

Himadri Banerjee Nilanjana Gupta Sipra Mukherjee

ANTHEM PRESS An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in India 2009 by ANTHEM PRESS C-49 Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019, India 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK 244 Madison Avenue #116, New York, NY 10016, USA © 2009 Himadri Banerjee, Nilanjana Gupta and Sipra Mukherjee editorial matter and selection; individual chapters © individual contributors. The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

ISBN-13: 978 81 905835 5 8 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Dedicated to all Calcuttans who have defended the values that make the city such a unique place to live ...sometimes with their lives.

CONTENTS List of Contributors

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

Introduction

1

1.

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities: Calcutta through th e L a s t Ce n tur y Keya Dasgupta

22

2.

Th e A r m e n ia n s o f C a lc utta Susmita Bhattacharya

70

3.

The Jews of Calcutta: An Interview with Michael Ezra Sipra Mukherjee

86

4.

The Sindhis of Calcutta Sajni Kripalani Mukherjee

96

5.

The City of Colleges: The Bengali-Muslim in Colonial Calcutta Sipra Mukherjee

6.

The Chinese Community of Calcutta: An Interview with Pa u l C h u n g Sipra Mukherjee and Sarvani Gooptu

130

The Anglo–Indians of Calcutta: An Interview with Rudolph L R o d r ig u e s Nandini Bhattacharya

142

The Biharis of Calcutta: An Interview with Sachchidand and Ind u R a i Sipra Mukherjee

152

Agraharis of Calcutta: A Minority Group within the Larger Sikh Co m m un ity Himadri Banerjee

164

A Journey into My Neighbourhood: The Bohra Community o f C a lc u tta Sarvani Gooptu

196

7.

8.

9.

10.

110

v iii

11.

12.

13.

C a lc utta Mo s a ic

The ‘South Indians’ of Calcutta: Experiences in Cultural Pr o c e s s e s Nandini Bhattacharya

210

‘Non-Bengali’ Icons of Malevolence: Middle Class Representation of an ‘Other’ in Interwar Calcutta Sudeshna Banerjee

230

Selfing the City: Single Women Outsiders in Calcutta, Gender a n d th e Pr o c e s s e s o f Ev e r y d a y U r b a n L ife Ipshita Chanda

252

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Himadri Banerjee is Professor of History and holds the Guru Nanak Professorship, Jadavpur University. His area of interest is Sikhism and its longterm ties with the rest of India. His research originally began with the economic history of Punjab, but has since widened to include the entirety of Sikh Studies in South Asia. He has published widely on his research area and his major publications include: Agraian Society of Punjab (1982), The Sikhs and the Khalsa, ed., 2002, The Other Sikhs, Vol.I (2003). Ipshita Chanda is Professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University. Her books include Packaging Freedom: Feminism and Popular Culture (Stree, 2003) and Lights! Camera…Taarpor (Ababhash, 2008). Her translations include Mahasweta Devi’s Bitter Soil (Seagull, 1997) and Sri Sri Ganesh Mahima (Seagull, 2002), and Sukumar Ray’s Chalachitta Chanchari and Lakshmaner Shaktishel (Sahitya Akademi, 2004). Her forthcoming works are a translation of Dhorai Charit Manas (Sahitya Akademi) and the book Selfing the City: Single Women, Urban Space and the Culture of Everyday Life (Stree). Keya Dasgupta is Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Her research interests include the cartographic history of Calcutta; Contemporary Calcutta: Planning, Development and Displacement; Tea Plantations in the Brahmaputra Valley under Colonialism. She has published widely on the research areas. Nandini Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of History at Calcutta Girls’ College, Kolkata. Her area of research is ‘Central Asia and Soviet studies’. She has authored the book titled, Dueling Isms: Soviet and Regional Identity in Central Asia. Her publications on Soviet Central Asia have appeared in a number of reputed journals and she has also contributed book chapters to several edited volumes. Nilanjana Gupta is Professor of English and Director at the School of Media Communication and Culture, Jadavpur University. Her research interests include media studies and popular culture on which she has published widely. Her publications include Switching Channels: Ideologies of Television in India (OUP, 1998), English for All (Macmillan India, 2000), The Weretiger - Tales of the Supernatural (Co-editor, Penguin, 2002), Reading With Allah: A Study of Madrassahs in West Bengal (Routledge, forthcoming), Dance Matters: A Reader on dance in South Adia (Co-editor, Routledge, forthcoming) and Communicate with Confidence (Anthem Press, 2007).

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Sajni Mukherji retired recently from Professorship at the Department of English, Jadavpur University where she also looked after a cell for the support of disabled persons in the University community. Her professional interests are in Medieval and Victorian literature, in fiction, and in translation. She is a Sindhi who has lived all her life in Calcutta and claims involvement with and distance from both Sindhis and Bengalis. Sarvani Gooptu (Datta) is Associate Professor of History at the Calcutta Girls’ College and also takes post graduate classes for the special paper on ‘Gender’ at the Department of South and South East Asian Studies, University of Calcutta. Her area of interest is Cultural Studies, Nationalism and Bengali public theatre. She is associated with the Women’s Studies Research Centre, University of Calcutta, the Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta and the Indian Association of Asian and Pacific Studies. Sipra Mukherjee is Reader of English at West Bengal State University, Kolkata. Her research and publications include exploration of religion and identity, language and conflict, religious conversion in Bengal, and work of the missionaries in Eastern India. She has co-edited Time Chart of Events and Publications of the 20th Century ( Jadavpur University, 1999) and co-translated Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s The Final Question (Permanent Black, 2001). Sudeshna Banerjee is Associate Professor in History, Jadavpur University. A PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, she has published articles in several learned journals - national and international - and in several edited volumes. She critically engages with gender studies, urban studies, environmental studies, studies in science and society, notions of nationhood, cultural politics of globalization, cultural politics of sports and urban conjunctures - all at the interface of social history and cultural studies. Susmita Bhattacharya was a Research Assistant at the Asiatic Society, Calcutta before joining as a Research Fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta. Her research centres on ‘Russian Language and Translation’. Her interests, on which she has published widely, include studies on Russia, Central Asia and Armenia. She has translated Valentina Chernovskaya’s Indian Entrepreneurship: Its Past and Present.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following essays are the result of work done under the ‘University with Potential for Excellence’ Programme of the UGC under the Project ‘Studies in Cultural Processes’: ‘The City of Colleges: The Bengali-Muslim in Colonial Calcutta’ by Sipra Mukherjee, ‘A Journey into My Neighbourhood: The Bohra Community of Calcutta’ by Sarvani Gooptu, ‘The Anglo-Indians of Calcutta: An Interview of Rudolph L Rodrigues’ by Nandini Bhattacharya, ‘The Biharis of Calcutta: An Interview with Sachchidand and Indu Rai’ by Sipra Mukherjee, ‘The Chinese Community of Calcutta: An Interview with Paul Chung’ by Sipra Mukherjee and Sarvani Gooptu, ‘The Jews of Calcutta: An Interview with Michael Ezra’ by Sipra Mukherjee, ‘“Non-Bengali” Icons of Malevolence: Middle class Representation of an “Other” in Interwar Calcutta’ by Sudeshna Banerjee, ‘Agraharis of Calcutta: A Minority Group within the Larger Sikh Community’ by Himadri Banerjee, ‘The Sindhis of Calcutta’ by Sajni Kripalani Mukherjee, ‘Selfing the City: Single Women Outsiders in Calcutta, Gender and the Processes of Everyday Urban Life’ by Ipshita Chanda, ‘The “South Indians” of Calcutta: Experiences in Cultural Processes’ by Nandini Bhattacharya. We would like to thank all who helped us to understand the city and its people through their involvement in workshops, discussions and personal communications. We would also like to thank Susmita Bhattacharya and Keya Dasgupta for their contributions to the book. This is by no means a completed work. It is a part of the process by which we hope a richer and more nuanced understanding of Calcutta and cities in general may be reached. Editors Himadri Banerjee Nilanjana Gupta Sipra Mukherjee

The Pagoda, Eden Gardens, Calcutta, Signed: Samuel Bourne, 1710. Photograph Courtesy: Christoph Laubsch, Private Collection, [www.annona.de ].

INTRODUCTION It is believed that Job Charnock stepped out gingerly from his merchant boat onto the banks of the river Ganga near the village Kalikata on 24 August 1690. This brought to the world the news of a tiny Bengal village, Kalikata. But was Kalikata really unknown till then? Though the history of the city is generally dated from Charnock’s entry, this story of the origin was challenged by the Sabarna Roy Chaudhury family. Signed on 10 November 1698, at Barisha Atchala, the deed of lease of the three villages of Bengal – Sutanuti, Kalikata and Govindapur, was drawn up between Sabarna Ray Chaudhury’s family and Job Charnock’s son-in-law Charles Eyere. Till recently, this event had been viewed as the moment at which Calcutta entered the history of Bengal. But when, on 16 May 2003, in a case that became famous as the Calcutta Birthday Case, the High Court of Calcutta ruled that neither could ‘Charnock be regarded as the founder of Calcutta, nor (could) the claim that Calcutta was born on 24 August, 1690’1 be substantiated historically, that judgement was almost entirely based on the finding that the history of Calcutta stretched way into the centuries past before Charnock had even set foot on Indian soil. The city of Kalikata or Calcutta has emerged through a very long history that spans over five or six centuries. The poet Bipradas Piplai’s Manasa Vijaya, written in 1495, alludes to a place called Kalikatah. The same name also appears a century later, in 1596, in Abul Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari. The first mention of the name ‘Calcutta’ was possibly in 1688, in a letter to Job Charnock by two East India Company servants from Dhaka. Though historical evidence shows south-west Bengal to have been a region populated from ancient times, the legend of Job Charnock, the trader who arrived with his merchant boat and established the city is perhaps an imaginatively more satisfying narrative. The growth of the city is so closely linked with the growth of the enterprises of the East India Company and later the British Government in India that this narrative seems to reflect a ‘truth’, whether it is factual or not. In fact, other aspects of Calcutta appear to belie such ‘truths’ which are denied by ‘facts’. The annals of history record that the city has been looked upon with suspicion, dread, aversion and disgust. Yet, it is to this city that thousands have flocked from different corners of the world from the sixteenth century: English, Armenians, Baghdadi Jews and Portuguese. Job Charnock’s choice of the village Kolikata has, in fact, been repeatedly questioned. The Statesman wrote in 1889:

2

Calcutta Mosaic

The wisdom of his choice of Calcutta as the site of a new settlement after his expulsion from the English factory in the town of Hooghly, with the option given to him by the Nawab of establishing himself and his countrymen lower down by the river of the same name, has from time to time been seriously arraigned. It may seem inexplicable that he should have abandoned Barrackpore, which he first founded, and which owes its native name to him, for the most unhealthy locality along the banks of the Hooghly river, as it drew nearer to the mouth of the sea. The Rev John Long has in a single phrase, accurately described old Calcutta as the ‘City of Swamps’.2

Macaulay called it a ‘place of mists, alligators, and wild boars’, Rudyard Kipling found it ‘one of the most wicked Places in the Universe’ and William MacIntosh described it in the following words: It is a truth that, from the western extremity of California to the eastern coast of Japan, there is not a spot where judgement, taste, decency and convenience are so grossly insulted as in that scattered and confused chaos of houses, huts, sheds, streets, lanes, alleys, windings, gullies, sinks and tanks, which, jumbled into an undistinguished mass of filth and corruption, equally offensive to human sense and health, compose the capital of the English company’s Government in India. The very small portion of cleanliness which it enjoys is owing to the familiar intercourse of hungry jackals by night, and ravenous vultures, kites, and crows by day. In like manner it is indebted to the smoke raised in public streets, in temporary huts and sheds, for any respite it enjoys from mosquitoes, the natural productions of stagnant and putrid waters.

Even the popular Bengali journal Shanibarer Chithi parodied Rabindranath Tagore’s lyric ‘Sarat’ to describe a city not entirely unknown to the modern Calcuttan: Aajike tomaar bidhur muroti Herinu shaarod probhaate Hey maato bango, shyaamol ango Bhore gechhe khaana dobaate. Paarena bohite loke jaro bhaar, Pete pete pile dharenaako aar, Dibase sheyaal gaahichhe kheyaal, Tomaar kaanon sabhaate...3 (Oh what agony on your face On this autumn morn I witness! O Mother Bengal, thy dewy freshness Is scarred, potholed and a mess.

Introduction

3

Groaning under the burden of fever, Indigestion runs rampant all over, The wolves bay in the blaze of day, Amidst your verdurant bowers...) Inexplicably therefore, despite such a dark and forbidding reputation, the ‘truth’ is that the city of Calcutta has been and is now peopled by communities with origins from all over the Oriental world – Armenians, Baghdadi Jews, Chinese and Parsis; by communities from the West who have come so long ago that they have over the centuries lost their foreignness – the Portuguese, the British and the Dutch; and also by communities from various parts of the Indian subcontinent – Sindhis, Biharis, Marwaris, Tamils, Kannadas, Asamiyas, Tibetans, Nepalese, Oriyas, Maharashtrians, Bohra Muslims from Gujarat, Sikhs from Punjab as well as Bihar, and Bengalis, both Hindus and Muslims, from East Bengal. The origins of today’s cosmopolitan city lie in the distant past, interlinked with the trade and commerce that was sustained and supported by the River Ganges. This book is an attempt to record the way in which these communities came and lived together and created a truly cosmopolitan city. The articles in this book are not limited to any specific time period. Rather, this book includes original field-based research papers, interviews, and papers which use available textual records to capture specific aspects of city life in general, and life in Calcutta in particular. The city provides economic opportunities for individuals and communities, yet a city is, of course, more than just an economic centre. The city allows a space for people to interact with others, to learn, to accept, to reject, to develop, to create new ways of living and of life itself. The idea of the city is also inextricably intertwined with that of modernity. Thus, so many modern classics have been about epic journeys to the cities, such as Satyajit Ray’s trilogy around the character of Apu, while Bimal Roy’s films have documented the same story in a different city and in a different vocabulary. The search for a place of one’s own – in all the senses of the term – in the hustle and bustle of city life is only the first chapter of a long story. The grand mansions of the rich and powerful as well as the intense discussions or ‘addas’ of the radical Coffee House on College Street, have all played a role in the story of the city’s development. They are the physical and intellectual structures of the city which have made the city what it is today. Yet, for a city to flourish, the sensibilities and the differences must find some way of coexisting, of mingling and of exchange. The story of each city is unique, and it is the multiple narratives of the people who have come and lived and created the city that we attempt to begin to present

4

Calcutta Mosaic

here in this book. This book is about the communities who came to the city and added their own special colours and shapes to the wonderful mosaic that is Calcutta. To appreciate the texture of the city’s history, it was necessary to delve into the roots of these migrant communities. In trying to explore the position of a community in modern Calcutta, we found it essential to find out why, some centuries ago, this city had become a destination for that community. The book also documents the lives of some communities who have passed through this city and, despite their past brilliance, are now not-so-readily visible. This would explain our inclusion of the Jewish community among the minorities of Calcutta. Though this community is at present a disappearing one, their once-intense presence in the city is marked by the great Maghen David, the largest synagogue in the East, lighted by gas and cooled by punkhas, and internationally renowned. The book also tries to uncover parts of the city’s past which, with the whimsical twists and turns that history took, are now seen to belong to the history of another land and another community. Thus, though many of the Bengali -Muslims who journeyed from present-day Bangladesh to West Bengal may have gone back after Partition, it was this community, empowered by the growing urban-centre Calcutta, that was instrumental in shaping the modern Bengali-Muslim middle class. Single working women who had come to the city, from different classes and communities, seem to have a commonality of features that cut across the standard dividing lines of class and community, and we felt it was only apt that the way in which the space of the ‘city’ allows for the growth of individuals be given the recognition it deserves. Through the essays and interviews on these several communities there emerges the evolving nature of the city. From a small, one-among-many villages passed by the merchant boats as they sailed down the Ganges, to a town that emerged as a trading centre, to the bustling colonial capital where futures were made, to the modern post-colonial city attempting to free itself of its colonial chains by reclaiming its name of Kolkata, the city has welcomed and grown with the many people who have made it their home. The volume may perhaps be said to lack what is called an evenness of language. While some of the chapters are text-and research-based, and the language used is the traditionally ‘academic’ language, some other chapters draw heavily on personal experience and memories, and the tone of these essays consequently are a little different. Though at the beginning we tended to think of this as a flaw, however in the course of the research we felt that the subjects which this volume has taken up preclude, by their very nature, a conventionally ‘academic’ rhetoric. The

Introduction

5

minorities’ voices, though significant and strong in the city, have been so seldom documented that there is very little written material on them. In many cases, therefore, the research involved looking into family histories, recognizing common experiences across a community, sifting through shared memories and anecdotes, and recollecting stories heard from parents and grandparents. In other words, a large part of the material gathered within this volume has been collated from personal lives, personal experiences, which of course is the actual stuff that creates histories, albeit silently. This was one of the main reasons that led us to structure the book as a collection of essays and interviews. We had some difficulty deciding the name of this book: ‘Calcutta Mosaic’ or ‘Kolkata Mosaic’. Our choice of the former was prompted by the belief that the older name Calcutta was richer in its historical resonances. Many of the contributors too have preferred to use Calcutta instead of the current name Kolkata since most of the essays deal with the city over the past century and more. To stick to a strictly correct nomenclature would have meant a continuous shuttling between the names Calcutta and Kolkata – a cumbersome correctness, needlessly confusing to the reader. The name Calcutta therefore refers not just to the period when it was so named, but to the larger context of the city as it has existed over the past centuries. The name Kolkata, though, has been used in a few places to refer very specifically to the modern city, as in the essay ‘Selfing the City’ which explores the city over the past few decades only. The geographical area which has developed into Calcutta has, in fact, a very long history. Roman merchants were traders along the Ganges as suggested by Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia which mentions a river port called Gange4 in deltaic Bengal. This reference is echoed by the anonymous Greek sailor – author of Periplus of the Erythraean Sea5 – a port at the mouth of the Ganges which traded in exotic goods such as malabathrum,6 Gangetic spikenard and pearls, and muslins of the finest sorts. That an arterial route along the river Ganges linked the area from the Barind tract (modern Malda) to West Dinajpur to the Rupnarayan Delta and coastal Midnapore appears to be borne out by archaeological evidence. The towns that are mentioned in these early texts are in areas near the river – Tribeni, Pandua, Saptagram. The Ain-i-Akbari mentions Saptagram as one of the 19 Sirkars of the Bengal Subah, and Kalkatte as a pargana of Saptagram.7 With the decline of Saptagram as a port towards the end of the sixteenth century, many traders were supposed to have left the area and moved to Govindapur. The East India Company records refer to these traders as prosperous cotton merchants who probably shifted to Govindapur in order to remain near the main trade route along the river, where there was brisk

6

Calcutta Mosaic

trade with the Portuguese merchants. Adjacent to Govindapur were Sutanuti and Kalikata, the three villages which were part of the khas mahal or imperial jagir of the Mughal emperor himself, and whose zamindari rights were held by Lakshmikanta Roy Chaudhury, Sabarno Ray Chaudhury’s ancestor. Writes H E A Cotton: In Colonel Mark Wood’s Map of 1784, published in 1792 by William Baillie [...] Suttanuttee is described as extending from Chitpore in the north to what is designated in the map as Jora Bagan Ghat, a little below Nimtollah Ghat. Thence commenced the northern boundary of ‘Dhee’ Calcutta, and that village proceeded south as far as Baboo Ghat. Here Govindpore began and ended at the Govindpore Creek, afterwards called Surman’s Nullah and later Tolly’s Nullah.8

The area was at that time a rural settlement, and the Tolly’s Nullah or Adi Ganga was possibly an outlet to the sea near modern Calcutta, with the ocean-going ships sailing up to around today’s Garden Reach area which was the anchoring place for ships. Though the Portuguese had already arrived in the neighbouring areas of Chittagong, Satgaon and Bandel, it was possibly the Armenians who were the first foreigners to enter and settle in Kalikata. Susmita Bhattacharya in her essay argues that the inscriptions on the tombstones at various graves in the city’s churchyards are evidence that a large number of the first Armenians who settled in Calcutta were from Shiraz and New Julfa in Persia. The archival documents, church records, manuscripts and tombstone inscriptions prove that in the sixteenth century, Armenians were resident in areas which were to form the city of Calcutta in the following years. There is however a great deal of debate regarding this hypothesis. Sunitikumar Chatterjee, referring to Mesrobv J Seth’s discovery of an inscription on an Armenian epitaph bearing the year 1630, writes that this was ‘the oldest document found within the precincts of Kolikata’: is a stone document. But scholars like Radharaman Mitra and C R Wilson have contradicted his conclusion citing this tombstone as an isolated finding. Mitra refers to a letter published in the East Indian Chronologist by Catchick Arakiel, a wealthy Armenian who was a resident of Calcutta: ‘Shortly after the establishment of Calcutta by the English, the Armenians settled among them […] The site of the present Armenian Church was at that time their burying ground in which there are tombstones dated 80 years back and consequently older than the present church.’10 This places the Armenian settlement in Calcutta in the era subsequent to the British settlement in the city. This debate is however yet to be settled and the essay on Armenians makes detailed reference to the help that was given

Introduction

7

to the British by the Armenians who, the writer argues, were already settled and established in the area by the time the British entered. That the Armenians, Portuguese and British built their settlements within Calcutta by the end of the seventeenth century is, however, certain. The immigrant community in Calcutta that undoubtedly predates the settlement of the Europeans is the Marwaris who outdid the Setts and Basaks as cloth merchants to the British and changed the name of the old Sutanuti haat to Burrabazar.11 The first Marwaris who came to Bengal were those who received the contract of supplying the essentials to the Rajput soldiers who came here with Akbar in the mid-sixteenth century. Under the Nawabs of Bengal, the Marwari vaishyas with their keen insight soon controlled the mint and banking. Many of Bengal’s Nawabs including Murshid Quli Khan, Shujauddin Khan and Alivardi Khan, looked to support from the Marwaris in times of financial strain. The Maratha marauders who raided Bengal several times targeted the Marwaris, and it is rumoured that more than three crores of rupees were extorted from them during Alivardi’s regime. This book, however, does not include an essay solely on the Marwari community. Anne Hardgrove’s recently published book, Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta,12 covers this community with admirable insight and detail, using historical documentation and anthropological fieldwork, to present a complete picture of the Calcutta Marwaris. The communities from the many parts of undivided India who arrived and settled in Calcutta peopled that area which came to be called the Black Town. By the early eighteenth century, the city had come to be divided into fairly well-defined European and Native quarters, known as the White and the Black Town. In his notes to the illustration ‘The Black Town of Calcutta’, Balthazard Solvyns writes: Each nation at Calcutta has its particular quarter; so we have the English quarter, the Portuguese quarter [...] That which is inhabited by the natives, who, whether they are originally Hindoos or Mussulmans, differ from all the others by their complexion which is as dark as the Caffries, is called the Black Town. No European is to be seen there, and the construction of the houses is entirely different from ours... As there is a considerable carriage of wood here, on account of the magazines and different buildings, the general employment of the neighbourhood is sawing planks for which they use small curbed saws […] and with these they do a great deal of work in the day, when they work on their own account: for they seem to undergo a total change as soon as they come under a master, and are as lazy as they were industrious.13

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Calcutta Mosaic

While the ‘White Town’ lay to the north of the old fort, the ‘Black Town’ spread over Sutanuti, Chitpur and Gobindapur. The gradual movement of the whites away from the area of Sutanuti where Charnock had first landed accentuated the divide between the White and the Black Towns.14 The deep trench, 16–18 feet wide, that was dug in 1710 ostensibly to drain the White Town was also a way of separating the White Town from the Black.15 The difference in the lifestyles of the two towns was vast. In the 1780s, William Hickey described a ‘fête-chapêtre’ at Edward Fenwick’s country house ‘situated upon the banks of the river, in Garden Reach’: The gardens were to be brilliantly illuminated with many thousands of coloured lamps. An eminent operator in fireworks had been brought down from Lucknow [...] the company to appear in fancy dresses, those that chose it wear masks […] tables were laid covered with all the dainties the best French cooks could produce, for the accommodation of three hundred persons [...] different bands of martial music were stationed in several parts of the gardens [...] with appropriate and distinct performers for the dancers. The last two miles of the road were lighted up with a double row of lamps on each side, making every object as clear as day. In short, nothing could exceed the splendour of this rural entertainment.

Such lavish arrangements in an area still under the grip of widespread poverty must have rankled with the natives who gawked at such parties. Their rancour prompted Sarat Chandra Pandit, more famous as Dadathakur, to sing: Ebaar mole shaaheb habo Oi raanga chul-e Hat bosiye Poor Native naam ghuchaabo. Das gauge-er kaapor chhere Der gauge-er pant poribo, Trala-laala-laala bole Brandy Sherry Champagne khaabo... (In my next life I’ll come as a sahib. Perch a hat o’ my tawny hair, and Renounce th’ name of ‘poor native’. Surrender my 10 yards-garb, Don the 1 ½ yard pants, Down Champagne Sherry Brandy As I sing Trala-laala-laala dandy) In 1758, the construction of Fort William and the demolition of Gobindapur required the inhabitants of the area to move to Taltala,

Introduction

9

Kumartuli and Shobhabazar, where they were given land as compensation. In the 1790s, the area around Chowringhee was still considered ‘out of town’, but affluent Europeans had begun to build ‘garden houses’ in the area.16 Between the White and the Black Towns of old Calcutta lay those areas in which lived the Portuguese, Armenians and Jews. This was the area between Janbazar and Park Street which had earlier attracted some 40 Europeans to build their residences there.17 Gradually, though, the areas around Writer’s Building, Baubazaar, Dharamtala and Janbazar declined in worth and were taken over by ‘the rest’, which included Anglo-Indians, Portuguese, Armenians, and the growing community of the Jews, ‘to become grey areas between Black and White Towns of old Calcutta’.18 The Jews had emigrated from Iraq to India in large numbers in the 1800s. Some were drawn to the city by the success of the early immigrant, Shalom Aharon Cohen, while others were trying to escape persecution in Baghdad from 1825 to 1831. The Japanese invasion of Burma led to Jews fleeing that country, raising the Jewish population of Calcutta to an alltime high of about 5,000 in early 1940. They established two Jewish schools, a Jewish hospital, and five synagogues of which three – the Neveh Shalome (The Abode of Peace) situated in Canning Street, the Beth El (Pollock Street) and the Maghen David (The Shield of David), are internationally renowned. This community of Calcutta increased from 15 in 1799 to 200 in 1825, and in 1860 they numbered 600 and rose to 2,000 by the end of the century. Today, though the number of Jews resident in Calcutta has sunk to a tiny 25, a recent judgement pronounced by the Calcutta High Court, however, has appreciably widened the delineation of the Calcutta Jews. In a suit regarding ‘a proposed construction on the southern strip of land’ adjoining the Maghen David Synagogue, situated at the crossing of Brabourne Road and Canning Street, the Judge famously ruled that: the body of Calcutta Jews would not only be composed of those Jews now permanently resident in Calcutta, but that it would be composed also of Jews who have at some time been a part of the congregation of Maghen David and in my opinion, would also include any Jews who might be visiting or staying in Calcutta. The expression ‘Community of Jews in Calcutta’ should be given a wide meaning and any Jew in Calcutta are or even genuinely interested in Calcutta would be a part of the body of the beneficiaries who own the Maghen David Synagogue and its property.19

This historical judgement has been welcomed by a number of Jews all over the world who, though inhabitants of other countries now, feel closely related to the city where they were born and where their families lived or still live. Michael Ezra, our interviewee for this book, is among this

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Calcutta Mosaic

community of Jews, now settled in London, but closely related to the Jewish culture and life of the Calcutta Jews. The other immigrant community that came in the wake of the British and the Portuguese was the Chinese community. Paul Chung, the Indian of Chinese descent whom we interviewed, believes that the early immigration to Calcutta was probably prompted by the trade connections with the Europeans and by the security of livelihood that Calcutta offered. China, from the early nineteenth century, had been going through repeated upheavals – the Opium wars, the Taiping Tianguo Uprising, the Sino– Japanese war, the Boxer Rebellion and the series of movements that finally led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911, and these had unsettled the lives of the common Chinese who found in Calcutta a ready market for their expertise in carpentry. There were also lard makers and opium dealers, running licensed opium dens. The shoemakers and the dentists followed later, after the First World War. Approximate estimates today place the population of the Chinese in Calcutta at about 20,000. The Sino– Indian War of 1962 ended further immigration from communist China. A large number left for Hong Kong, Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States. Those who remained were often viewed with hostility and harassed. There is still one Chinese newspaper published in the city, The Overseas Chinese Commerce in India, but sales figures for 2005 show that sales have dwindled from 500 to 300 copies sold. In the Grace Ling Liang English School, about 90 per cent of the students used to be ethnic Chinese; in 2003, only about 15 per cent of the 1,500 students were Chinese. Most of the Chinese in Calcutta now prefer to educate their children in the English-medium schools. At present, the children are aspiring to take up other professions rather than the traditional ones. Calcutta’s Chinese have created two Chinatowns – one in Territti Bazar and the other in Tangra, the only city in India and perhaps the only one in the world to have two Chinatowns. Although most Chinese festivals are celebrated within the family, the Chinese New Year is celebrated here every year with the splendour of the vibrant and colourful martial dance, the lion dance, and other cultural activities. The easy distinction between ‘foreigners’ who immigrated to Calcutta and Indians who came to the city gets completely blurred when we come to the Anglo-Indian community which has had a long history in Bengal. Variously termed as Eurasians or Anglo-Indians, the history of this community is traceable to the earliest Europeans who arrived in Bengal around 1498. Arriving as merchants, evangelists and statesmen in the areas neighbouring the then tiny village of Kalikata, many among the Portuguese and French have integrated themselves into the mainstream areas like

Introduction

11

Bandel in Hooghly or Mirpur in Midnapore. In the city of Calcutta, however, this integration has taken time, accelerating after the independence of India. Viewed as being loyal to the British Raj, many of the Anglo-Indians left the city with the British, uncertain about their position in independent India. However, many others remained – some out of choice, others out of economic necessity, and with their decision to remain, much change has occurred within the community. The focus of this change, as Dean Wright and Susan Wright says, is indicated by the current need of the community to develop a self-identity now that England has abandoned its cause. During colonial rule AngloIndians were usually afforded protected political, economic, and sometimes social positions by the British, They were often guaranteed jobs in certain strategic occupations – customs, communication, transportation, and the police. However, with the coming of national independence in 1947, the reference group and protector of this Community, the British, were no longer present. It was then necessary that they stand alone or simply cease to exist as a cultural entity.20

Today, though the community retains the cultural characteristics of its European ancestors, there exist many differences within this often stereotyped and seemingly homogeneous community. As Lionel Caplan writes, the Anglo-Indian ways of life have clearly been much influenced by cultural practices in their local surroundings, and increasingly so since India’s independence, notwithstanding the impacts of westernization and globalization. The urban cultural milieu in which Anglo-Indians were and continue to be situated is therefore best viewed as creolized: Such an approach stresses the notion of a continuum, thereby acknowledging not only diversity within the group, but mutual influence and overlap between cultural groups, and hence Anglo-India’s constant negotiation with ‘mainstream’ society and culture. In this sense, Anglo-Indians serve as both a factor in and a potent reminder of the fluidity of the urban social environment during the colonial no less than the post-colonial periods.21

Prof. Roderigues, in his interview, speaks with insight about how, over time, the gradual integration of the community into the mainstream of Indian life became a necessity. Since the 1960s in fact, there has been a marked realization in all sections of this community that the emerging political structures in free India, based on equity, democracy, socialism and secularism would serve their interests, and if the community could raise itself above the mire of self-degradation and self inflicted isolation, they could compete for placements and opportunities that a developing country can offer its citizens.22

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Calcutta Mosaic

The essay on the Sindhi community in Calcutta by Sajni Kripalani Mukherjee takes us into the lanes and by lanes of the old ‘New Market’ area where the first Sindhis took up their residence. Different in tone from the other research-based essays, this essay is more a personal narrative of the community, told with humour, nostalgia and a rare objectivity. Though the majority of the Sindhis came to the city after the Partition, the author was among those who arrived in the pre-Independence era. The essay charts the early culture of the Sindhis which evolved as they travelled across the old Silk Route, the Islamic influences that entered north-west India, and the consequent unique blend of Islam, Hindu and Sikh cultures in the Sindhi festivals. The uprooting and losses of the Partition, leading to the harrowing exodus from one land to another, destroyed a unique social world that existed in Sind. In that historic year, the composite Hindu–Muslim world of Sindh disappeared from the map of history, perhaps forever. During the period 1947– 50 a whole way of life, culture [...] came to an end in Sukkur, Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana. [...] Sindh the place still physically exists, but it is now a very different social world.23

Among the celebrations and festivals detailed in this essay, is a mourning for the loss of this ‘simple sense of community’ between religions that had been unique to this area. The migration of the Sindhi community is supposed to have begun as early as the fifteenth century when the Bhatias, merchants from Thatta in lower Sindh, engaged in trading activity in Oman. About three centuries later, around the mid-eighteenth century, migration started in a more ordered way from Shikarpur, a small town in upper Sindh. A hundred years later, around 1840, the inhabitants of Hyderabad, the capital of Sindh, joined the migration as the family of Wassiamull Assoomull migrated overseas. A part of Calcutta for generations, many like the dancer Rani Karnaa, or the Tollygunge screen heroes Joy and Jeet, born Joy Badlani and Jeetu Madnani, are recognised more as Calcuttans than as Sindhis, just as Ramesh Sippy, Govind Nihalani, Asrani, Babita, Sadhana and Lillette Dubey are Mumbaikars. With their legendary spirit, the Sindhis have merged with and even shaped what may be called the mainstream Indian culture and business. It is this ease with which the community adapts to the language and culture of the host country that will, ironically, perhaps lead to a loss that appears increasingly possible with the passing of time – the loss of the Sindhi language. This language is written in both the Arabic and the Devnagari script, with a rich vocabulary drawn from Sanskrit, Dravidian, Arabic and Persian. The Sindhi culture and festivals are lively and enthusiastic celebrations. The Chetti Chand

Introduction

13

festival, the first day of the Sindhi New Year and the birthday of Jhulelal, the water God and patron saint of Sindhis, is celebrated with the traditional pulsating rhythm of the dance Chhej, a dance of joy. Calcuttans who favour Sindhi cuisine, with its traditional gehar (large jalebis), its seyal pallo, seero puri, the tangy loli and the sweetened lolo are however largely dependent on the kindness of their Sindhi friends, since few restaurants offer this cuisine on a regular basis. Another community that believes its association with Calcutta goes far back into the pre-colonial era is the Sikh community. Many of them believe that towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, Guru Nanak had visited the region that eventually grew into the city of Calcutta. The association of the city with the Sikh gurus was continued by the visit of their ninth guru, Teg Bahadur, who came to Calcutta in 1670. Himadri Banerjee’s essay on this community clarifies many misconceptions born out of stereotyping. For example, the general view of the Sikhs of Calcutta is that they are a homogeneous community of immigrants from the land of Punjab. In truth though, a large portion of the Calcutta Sikhs come from Bihar. These are the ‘Agrahari’ Sikhs whose roots lie in different places of Bihar. Nowhere in the written or narrated accounts of these Sikhs, do they refer to themselves as Sikhs from Punjab. Their writings suggest that their ancestors came to Calcutta around the last decade of the eighteenth century from Sasaram, Patna, Gaya, Purnea and other places in Bihar. The testimonies also reveal that they were converted to Sikhism many years earlier, when the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, visited Bihar in 1666. Agrahari Sikhs are distinguished by the different turbans they wear – the patka (small) type. The men used to wear the dhoti in the Bengali manner in the 1930s – this was also the time when they used Bengali to keep their accounts. They call themselves the Takhurbaris, Hindu-Sikhs, or Sanatan Sikhs. They worship Durga and Kali and other Hindu idols even as they celebrate gurpurabs. The gurdwara being more than a place of worship, the community has always built a gurdwara when they have made a settlement in a new place. The oldest gurdwara in Calcutta is therefore roughly as old as the first Sikh settlement. This is the Badi Singh Sangat gurdwara, one of around ten gurdwaras that are in the city. The earliest Sikh settlements grew up in the hub of old Calcutta, Burrabazar, and its surrounding areas of Jorabagan, Mechhua and Chitpore. After colonization by the British, as the rural area began to prosper and shape itself into the colonial city of Calcutta, the growing government and business houses brought many more into the city. The railways facilitated migration by easing the earlier painful journey, and the demand for labour brought large numbers of male migrants, notably from the neighbouring

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Calcutta Mosaic

state of Bihar, into the city. With numerous offices coming up, trade flourishing, and many thousands rushing to office everyday, a number of needs, both core and ancillary, began to demand attention. The need was felt to make buildings, procure and supply building material, provide and operate transport, open and man shops for food or clothing – needs which the Bengali found it difficult to fulfil. These demands were met by the ‘non-Bengali’ male migrant who came to Calcutta, secure in the knowledge that jobs would be found here. The bitterness of their women, who were usually left behind in the various neighbouring states, find voice in songs such as this Bhojpuri one: Railiya na bairi, jahajiya na bairi, Naukariya bairi ho. 24 (The railways are not our enemies, The ships are not our enemies, It is the jobs which are our enemies.) Many of the Bihari migrants have made it big in this city. With their plucky, single-minded dedication and remarkable ability to work hard, many Biharis have moved up the social ladder into fields such as engineering, medicine and education. Our interview of Sachchidanand Rai, an engineer who is well settled in Calcutta, is especially interesting because it reveals the curious mixture of the urban and the rural that is so distinctly Bihari. He is at the same time a Calcuttan, having made the city his home, and a Bihari, because his connections with the Chhapra district draw him back to his village every year. The story of his father, who was the first in his family to migrate out of Bihar is similar to that of many others who have, and are still, moving into the city of Calcutta. Like his father, who came to Calcutta as a labourer, and then with initiative and hard work, established his own business, many have shaped with their own hands a brighter future for themselves and their families. The rapidly growing city changed the lives of many Bengalis too. People not only made money in the city, some even broke free of their restraining caste identities. A popular couplet in early nineteenth century Calcutta runs: Dulal holo Sarkar, Okrur holo Datta, Aami kina thakbo je Koibatto shei Koibatto!25 (Dulal changes to Sarkar, Okrur changes to Datta, Why should I remain the same Kaibarto!) This demand to fit into the elevated echelons of the caste ladder – the Brahmins, Baidyas and the Kayasthas – reveals the ferocity with which

Introduction

15

privileges of birth were guarded by the Bengali babu. The openly supercilious tone and behaviour of the babu towards both the ‘non- Bengali’ as well as those Bengalis who did not belong to their ‘class’ has been reflected in literature repeatedly. The resentment against the snobbish and self-indulgent babu is revealed in many poems and songs of the times. One such poem relates what constitutes the Calcutta babu: Ghudi, tudi, jash, dan, akhda, bulbuli, munia, gaan. Ashtahe bono bhojan ei nabadha babur lakshan.26 Sudeshna Banerjee in her essay depicts how the essentialism authored by a Bengali middle class projected Bengaliness as a homogeneous cultural identity. Thus, despite the continuous inflow of ‘foreigners’ into the city, the Bengali middle class of Calcutta has often expressed a narrow and prejudiced response to the outsider communities. Complemented by a culture-insensitive discourse, this resulted in a lumping together of all other regional–linguistic communities in the city into a blanket category – the ‘non-Bengali’. Banerjee identifies the interwar years between 1910 and 1940, as the historical juncture when the Bengali middle class’s expectation to hegemonise the regional–linguistic ‘others’ came to be displaced by an anxious premonition that the bid was failing. This fear is viewed in association with the eruption of negative stereotypes of specific occupational groups affiliated to regional–linguistic configurations other than the Bengali that occurred at this time – the Ude, the Medo or the Khotta. The stereotype of the wealthy Marwari has been immortalized by Parashuram in the character of Ganderiram Batperia, the shrewd businessman whose morals are decidedly ambiguous. With colonization came many officials or functionaries from what are today the four South Indian provinces. Almost all these migrants were educated and at that time representatives of the ‘Madras Presidency’, which perhaps explains why Bengalis still refer to them as ‘Madrasis’. The essay on these communities from the South of India tries to explain how such a loosely-bound, blanket term – the south Indian – came to be used for the many people who migrated to the city from places as distinct as Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Many also migrated as, with the colonial governance, the need for educated professionals was felt in the administration. The South Indian presence in the city has been marked by its significant contribution to culture and cuisine. Though it is the idli– dosa that is usually synonymous with South Indian food, the cuisine of the various provinces is, in reality, diverse. While the coconut is important in the cuisine of Kerala, the Andhra Pradesh cuisine is marked by spicy pickles and curries. Hyderabadi cuisine on the other hand is famed for its legendary

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Calcutta Mosaic

biryani. Lovers of South Indian food know that the best authentic ingredients will be found in the Lake Market area, where the community, most of whom are residents of south Calcutta, buy their ingredients. The essay on this community is largely interview-based, with some books and souvenir– journals serving as occasional sources of information. The class–culture homogeneity that most of us visualize among the different people from the different provinces of the South is found to be a myth by Nandini Bhattacharya. While the typical English-educated elite/middle class ‘South Indian’ makes up a significant part of the community, a number of people from the Deccan are also found to be shop-keepers and small scale traders, as well as many who work at roadside food shops as cooks. The Bengali-Muslims form another large minority group within the city. This group, speaking the Bangla language, and inhabitants of undivided Bengal should, in most respects, not be considered as a separate minority community within the city. This is, and was, their state of residence. Yet an oft-repeated puzzling dialogue – ‘Is she a Bengali?’ ‘No, she’s a Muslim’– prompted us to look at the Bengali-Muslims of Calcutta. The essay on this community by Sipra Mukherjee goes back in history to explore the coming of the Bengali-Muslim to colonial Calcutta. Among the many peoples attracted to the growing urban centre, were those from East Bengal. Unlike many other communities which migrated to the city for trading or employment interests, this group first began journeying to Calcutta for the educational facilities that the city provided. Most of the Muslim families in Calcutta had been Urdu-speakers, and the Bengalispeaking Muslims from East Bengal began to arrive in the city in considerable numbers in the late nineteenth century. In their movement towards Western education, however, there was an unexpected obstacle – the question of their vernacular. For a Muslim, learning the Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages was considered obligatory. The Bangla language was considered un-Islamic and disrespectable for a Muslim to use. Yet, as education grew increasingly possible for the masses, education in the mother tongue became essential, and the Bengali-Muslim found that he (the early group of the educated Bengalis were largely male) had first to establish Bangla on a footing equal to that of the other Islamic languages before it was thought respectable enough for use in the madrassahs. Through debates on how their language should evolve, as Sanskritic Bangla or Mussalmani Bangla, and on what role religion should play in public education, the Bengali-Muslim struggled to attain for their mother tongue the status of a vernacular which could be used as a vehicle for Islamic knowledge. The essay in this collection charts the journey of the BengaliMuslim who, without sacrificing either his Islamic identity or Bengali-

Introduction

17

ness, establishes his mother tongue as both a secular and a religious language and moves towards Western education. Though many of these educated Bengalis returned to East Bengal after Partition, many stayed behind, having shaped the mindset and created the infrastructure that would allow thousands of later Bengali-Muslims to educate themselves. Yet another Muslim community, far fewer in number than the Bengali -Muslims, is the community of the Bohra Muslims. Incredibly little has been written on this community of Calcutta. The little written documentation that exists is in the Gujarati language, or in Lisaan-udDawat which is their Deen-i-zabaan, or their religious language. Sarvani Gooptu’s essay on the Bohra community is therefore based entirely on interviews conducted by the researcher. The Bohras who came to Calcutta are from different districts of Gujarat like Surat, Khambat, Nagar Haveli, Dadra, Palampur, Kapparvanch, Godhra and Burhanpur; the differences of the various groups are evident in the diverse dialects, styles of clothing and behavioural etiquette that they practise. With the coming of the railways, the Bohra emigration to Calcutta increased. The majority of the Bohras of Calcutta are Dawoodi Bohras, followers of the Syedna. Though the present Syedna, the 52nd Dai Dr Syedna Md Burhanuddin resides in Bombay, his presence is overwhelming over his flock all over the world. Submission to the Syedna is initiated with the misaq ceremony at maturity for both boys and girls, and the advice of the Syedna is sought on both spiritual and temporal matters. During our research and interactions with the community, we found it difficult to reconcile the two features which emerge as the salient features of the Bohra community – the ease with which the Bohra Muslim handles state-of-the-art technology and all the other trappings of the ‘modern’ scientifically progressive world, and their absolute unquestioned obedience to their religious leader. Accustomed as we are to associating modernity with individualism, the religiosity of the Bohras and their acceptance of the Syedna’s authority in their lives, is puzzling. Events as personal as marriage, or creating a trust, and as unspiritual as the construction of a house, starting a business, standing for elections, or even voting for a certain candidate needs the raza, or permission, of the Syedna. There has been a reform movement from within the Bohra community against the abuse of power by the Syedna, but our researcher did not come across any supporters of this group, the Progressive Dawoodi Bohras, in the city. The one essay that stands out as dealing with a group lacking the usual communitarian or ethnic boundaries is Ipshita Chanda’s essay on the single women who migrated to Calcutta for education or employment. These women had all left the sheltered lives that they had led in rural or suburban

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Calcutta Mosaic

Bengal in order to chase a dream – ‘the dream of the city’. While the journey of the male to the urban metropolis has been narrated in many stories, the story of the woman has been left largely untold. Today, after about four or five decades since this phenomenon began, it is perhaps possible to identify certain features of this journey. It appears that a process of ‘selfing the city’ has begun and the foundations of some traditions have been laid as well. This essay, like the earlier one, is based on the findings of interviews of the many nameless women who have come to the city through the years, and finally settled down. In many cases, though, the researcher felt that despite the most difficult adjustments and negotiations which these women had made towards a life in the city, they were still reluctant to make their unique experience a part of a social process by highlighting their struggles and triumphs. Though almost all of them looked back upon their feats in silent and personal satisfaction, they were hesitant to make it a part of social knowledge by sharing them out over a wider circle. This is a minority group where, despite the absence of cultural or communal associations, a sense of community, of cooperation and unity, appears to exist, giving us the rationale to treat it as one among the minority communities of Calcutta. The history of the city, in its journey from a village to a city, has been an eventful one. Even if we limit ourselves to the modern documented history, Calcutta has seen victories and defeats, riots and celebrations, riches and poverty, disease and famine during its time. The grandeur of the city in the early days of the East India Company prompted Wellesley to call it the City of Palaces. More recently, it has been described as a city which is dying, and also been in the news as a city of poverty and misery. Through all this, Calcutta has remained home to many diverse communities. It is not that the city has always seen amity and cordial relations among these communities who people it. The bloody communal riots that occurred at the time of Partition – the Great Calcutta Killings – have forever scarred the communal history of this city. Yet, the fact that Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians still live here in relative peace and security, gives hope. Outbursts of fanaticism and violence are rare and have, till now, always invited the condemnation of the larger majority of Calcuttans. Along with this religious diversity is the ethnic diversity – Baghdadis, Parsis, Armenians, Oriyas, Assamese, Gujaratis, Nepalis, Tibetans and Marathis. In fact, our research introduced us to many communities and we have been forced to leave many out for lack of time and space. The enduring presence of many such communities is most visible in the innumerable cuisines available and popular in Calcutta – the Gujarati dhokla, the Tibetan momos, the

Introduction

19

Maharashtrian pav-bhaji. If communities like the Parsis have not impressed the city with its food, they have given Calcutta the legacy of the Parsi theatre, the echo of a past found today in Madan Theatre. The study of these other communities would have proved interesting and we hope to include them in some future text as a tribute to the still evolving, vibrant cluster of communities that constitutes the city of Calcutta.

NOTES 1

2 3

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8

9

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The division bench comprising Chief Justice A K Mathur and Justice J K Biswas accepted the report by the five-member committee headed by eminent historian Nemai Sadhan Bose. The order came after Advocate General Balai Roy informed the court about acceptance of the contents of the expert committee report by the West Bengal government. The Statesman, 6 February 1889, Calcutta. The original poem by Tagore, ‘Sarat’ ran: ‘Aajike tomaar modhur muroti Herinu shaarod probhaate, Hey maato bango shyaamol ango Jholichhe amal shobhaate...’ I could not locate the Shanibarer Chithi in which this parody had been published, but the reference to this may be found at [http://addabaj.net/lofiversion/ index.php?t494.html]. These translations, and the later ones, are the editors’. According to historian Paresh Chandra Dasgupta, Gange could perhaps be identified with Chandraketugarh, which was probably a river port, situated about 25km from what is now north Calcutta. Schoff, W H, trans. and ed., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century, London, Bombay and Calcutta,1912. The name used in classical and medieval texts of the West for the leaf of the plant Cinnamomum tamala (sometimes given as Cinnamomum tejpata). In ancient Greece and Rome, the leaves were used to prepare a fragrant oil, called Oleum Malabathri, and were therefore valuable. This is the leaf known as tejpata to Indians, and which is different from the bay leaf which is of Mediterranean origin. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malabathrum]. For a fuller discussion on the status and size of Calcutta, see ‘Kalikata Naamer Byutpatti Prashange’ in Mitra, Radharaman, Kalikata-Darpan, Vol. 1, Subarnarekha Publishers, Calcutta, 1980. Cotton, H E A, Calcutta Old and New, General Printers and Publishers Pvt Ltd., Calcutta, 1909/1980, p. 17. Chatterjee, Sunitikumar, ‘Kalikata Naamer Byutpatti’, Sahitya-Parishat-Patrika, Issue 1, 1938. The essay was later reprinted in the journal Desh, 9 March 1968, Calcutta. Letter written by Catchick Arakiel to Hawksworth in 1801. Quoted in Mitra, Radharaman, op. cit., p. 10. Nair, P Thankappan, ‘The Growth and Development of Old Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, Calcutta: The Living City, Vol. I, pp. 11–18. Hardgrove, Anne, Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004.

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13

Hardgrave, Robert L, Jr, ‘A Portrait of Black Town: Balthazard Solvyns in Calcutta, 1791-1804’, in Pal, Pratapaditya, ed., Changing Visions, Lasting Images: Calcutta Through 300 Years, Marg, Bombay, 1990, pp. 31–46. Lahiri Choudhury, Dhriti Kanta, ‘Trends in Calcutta Architecture’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., pp. 156–7. Nair, P Thankappan, ‘Civic and Public Services in Old Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., p. 227. Hardgrave, Robert L, Jr, op. cit. Cotton, H E A, op. cit., p. 106. Lahiri Choudhury, Dhriti Kanta, ‘Trends in Calcutta Architecture’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., pp. 159–60. Suit No: 162 of 1988, Samuel Sadka and Others versus Aaron Harazi and Others, in the Calcutta High Court, Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction, by the Honourable Justice Ajoy Nath Ray, 22 December 1992, High Court. Wright, R Dean and Wright, Susan W, ‘The Anglo-Indian Community in Contemporary India’, Midwest Quarterly XII, Pittsburgh State University, Winter, 1971, pp. 175–85. Caplan, Lionel, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial Hybridities: Eurasians in India’, IIAS Newsletter No. 30, March, 2003. ‘History of the Anglo-Indians’, Anglo-Indian Association, http://www. aiadanapur.org/docs/about.asp. Accessed on 28th January, 2008. ‘Sindhis today: The New Avatar’, Sindhis in India, [http://www.sindhiinfo.com/ sindhicities/sindhicities.asp], accessed on 10 November 2007. Saxena, D P, Rural-Urban Migration in India, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1977, pp. 175–8. Seth, Harihar, Pracheen Calcutta, Calcutta, BE 1341 (approx. CE 1934), p. 332. Samachar Darpan, 24 Febrauary 1821, reprinted in Bandyopadhyay, Brajen, Sambadpatre Sekaler Katha, Vol. 1, Calcutta, 1949.

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16 17 18

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25 26

Horse drawn carriages waiting for passengers at Howrah Station. Photograph Courtesy: Frank Bond, Bond Photo Library, University of Chicago, The Digital South Asia Library.

Chapter 1 MAPPING THE SPACES OF MINORITIES: CALCUTTA THROUGH THE LAST CENTURY

Keya Dasgupta

I The spatial concentration of communities, with transformations over time has been a neglected theme in academic research on Indian cities. Thus, when I was asked to present a broad overview of the organization of minority communities in the city space of Calcutta, a number of questions immediately came to my mind. First, how would one define ‘minorities’? Second, has there been any change in the concentration/dispersal of minorities over space? Can one identify the factors behind such changes? Third, can one identify the major phases in the development of minority settlements in Calcutta? The decennial census, the only source of a consistent time-series demographic data, provides us with figures on the two broad groupings into which minorities are generally classified: religious and linguistic. The limitation of this database, however, is that the census authorities have discontinued the publication of either religious or linguistic categories at the level of the municipal wards,1 since 1961. Yet, one cannot make meaningful spatial analysis unless such micro-level figures are made available. The existing ward-level data prior to 1961, though not fully comparable over time, due either to changes in the method or subject of enumeration, gives a broad indication of the transformations, if any, in the organization of minorities over space. Very few sources exist, apart from demographic data mentioned above, that could provide some clue as to the concentration of communities over space in the city of Calcutta, historically. Since the late eighteenth century,

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Calcutta Mosaic

maps prepared on the city have been major sources, both directly and indirectly. Locality and street names, names of markets, religious institutions, burial grounds, synagogues, etc. often provide evidence of the existence of communities. Taking note of both, as well as of some of the problems of comparability, the present analysis has been confined to religious and linguistic minorities, primarily between 1901 and 1961. An effort has been made to overcome part of the lacunae in the census data by using studies published on a few minority communities in Calcutta by social scientists from varied disciplines. It should be clarified at the outset that the aim in the present article is to map the spaces of minorities, relying on computations made from ward-level census figures since 1901. This we feel is the basis, not studied adequately before, upon which further analysis can be made. The study focuses on communities whose presence in the city has been considered significant. Wherever possible, efforts have been taken to enquire into the causal relationships, as to why certain communities have concentrated in particular localities, or why such concentrations dispersed into other areas for some, and not for others.

II Taking a period ranging broadly between the mid nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries, the majority groups in the city of Calcutta are constituted by the Hindus (for religious groups) and Bengalis (for linguistic groups). ‘Minorities’ thus refer to all communities that are non-Hindus and non-Bengalis. Calcutta has witnessed the inflow of communities not only from its vast and varied hinterland, but as a colonial city, it became the focus of immigration of people from different parts of the world. References to immigrant communities can be found in the vast literature on the city’s history. Yet, it is difficult to come across studies that take into account the spatial organization of these communities over a period. Noteworthy among the studies that have taken the city of Calcutta as the focus of enquiry is the seminal work carried on under the eminent social scientist Nirmal Kumar Bose – Calcutta 1964: A Social Survey.2 Based primarily on a ‘brief social survey’ in the early sixties, the purpose was ‘to limit the enquiry to a few selected aspects of social life in Calcutta’, which were: firstly, ‘the distribution of linguistic groups in different parts of the metropolis, and note if changes have taken place over time’; secondly, ‘to find out if these groups make their living by different or the same kinds of occupations’; and thirdly, ‘to enquire into the working of voluntary institutions belonging to various linguistic groups’, among other related

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

25

enquiries. The basic findings, primarily related to the ethnic composition of the city, was the subject of enquiry of an article ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’.3 A number of studies on individual minority communities which had evolved at that time followed, primarily as offshoots of Bose’s social survey in the early sixties. A major contribution in the field emanated from the Anthropological Survey of India around this period,4 and even later. Bose’s analysis of the concentration of ethnic groups formed the basis of a study published on ‘The Ethnic Composition of Calcutta and the Residential Pattern of Minorities’.5 Based on the census figures of 1961, the article ‘examines the residential pattern of ethnic minorities in the generally Bengali-Hindu dominated city’. A major finding of the study is that: more than any ethnic bias, occupational considerations (proximity to workplace and economic status) direct a person to choose a residence. Residential patterns of ethnic minorities in Calcutta are products of the long history of an evolving structure of economic opportunities.6

In the late 70s, the publication of Pradip Sinha’s Calcutta in Urban History filled the gap in the available literature on the city’s history – its physical space, communities and economy.7 Through the use of a wide range of sources – archival, judicial, cartographic and others – the transformations in ethnicity and occupations of colonial Calcutta was an important point of focus. What is especially significant are his observations on the economic and cultural settings of the earliest immigrant communities, such as the Portuguese, Armenians, Eurasians, Jews, followed by the Chinese, and others. In the nineties we find an important academic endeavour on the city, Sukanta Chaudhuri edited Calcutta: A Living City.8 Articles on selected immigrant communities address issues both in the historical and contemporary contexts, an area of research relatively neglected in academic research. After four decades since Bose’s seminal study, with the city’s social space undergoing continual transformations, an attempt would be made to outline, very broadly, the salient features of the spaces of minorities from existing literature, census figures, maps, etc.

III Calcutta has had a long history of immigration of communities, diverse in ethnic, linguistic and religious attributes. The multifarious functions of a colonial government, its growing and diverse economy and society have offered space and opportunities to a vast range of people from different

26

Calcutta Mosaic

corners of the subcontinent and the world beyond. Waves of migration have followed. The social organization of space in Calcutta, or more correctly, ‘what was to become Calcutta’, was a pattern well-entrenched by the early eighteenth century, reflective of the initial phases of most colonial cities. This was a broad division between a) the indigenous settlement in the northern part, the traditional bazaar settlement (Bara Bazaar) and ‘a riverine mart specializing traditionally in cloth trade (Sutanuti)’, ‘a residential village with sacred traits (Gobindapur)’, the religious nucleus of Kalighat and the neighbouring settlement of Bhawanipore, along with several peripheral hamlets; b) the European settlement, surrounding the ‘old’ Fort along the River Hooghly south of Bara Bazaar, and extending southeastwards gradually; and c) the intermediate zone between the two, what was popularly known as the ‘grey’ town, inhabited by a wide range of people, primarily immigrants – the Portuguese, Greeks, Armenians, followed by the Chinese and Eurasians. ‘The areas of interpenetration between the white and the black town – the European and the Indian town – represented much denser formations than areas which tended towards European exclusiveness.’9 These ‘areas of interpenetration’ were the primary sites on which immigrant or minority communities made their homes through the last three centuries or more. Other locales, in the growing city’s periphery that witnessed the setting up of industries of varying nature, gradually added to the figures. The locational preferences were guided primarily by economic factors, as observed from studies made on these communities, as well as from other sources. What is interesting, and would be revealed partly through figures and maps of the spaces of minorities through the last century, are the varied and thus interesting permutations and combinations of communities that resulted from these concentrations. The aim of the present article is to map these spaces over time. Why and how these spaces came to take form is a field that needs further investigation.

IV Representative Immigrant/Minority Communities In the present article, we have used the categories – minorities and immigrants – to the city as being broadly coterminous, since this is generally the case, though with specific exceptions. It must also be clarified that though we would be dealing with two very clearly marked categories – religion and language, often these categories get overlapped. For example, when focussing on the Chinese community, the Confucian or Buddhist

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

27

communities would very naturally come into focus, or when writing on the Jains, the same would happen to communities with which this religion is primarily related – the Marwaris/Rajasthanis, the Parsis and Zoroastrians, the Sikhs to Gurmukhi/Punjabi and so on. Few minority communities, as would be shown, tended to concentrate within their exclusive domains. Yet, most of these communities have in the main tended to concentrate in areas of mixed populace – mixed in both linguistic and religious terms. It would be interesting to note that the majority of wards with mixed population happen to be those with high minority concentrations, with no particular majority group in most. Viewed from another angle, it could also be that occupational choices or compulsions were major determining forces, as has been observed in several studies.10 Such an amalgam of varied linguistic and religious groups in selected localities is borne out by figures computed from the decennial census, ward-wise for the city. It should however be mentioned that we have tried to focus the analysis in this essay to representative minority communities. Unfortunately, the latest that we can move with such analysis would be the Census of 1961, as mentioned earlier. Yet, as studies on individual communities carried out later mostly indicate, there have not been very marked changes in the relative concentrations of communities, with the exception of a few, most of whose members have either left the city, or gradually dwindled in numbers, such as the Anglo-Indians, Jews or Parsis. We have adopted two different levels of classification, for both religious and linguistic communities, in the analysis of the temporal changes in their concentrations. For those that are not numerically very significant compared to other communities in the city and could be related to specific areas of concentration, their share (ward-wise) in the total population of the community in the city has been taken as a measure of their strength. Some examples are Armenians, Anglo-Indians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Confucians, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, etc. For communities that have a prevalence throughout the city, though unequally, their shares in the total population of the respective wards have been computed. Examples would be the Muslim community and speakers in Hindi. The same method has also been adopted for selected linguistic groups for which ward-level figures are available only for 1961. Examples are Oriya, Marwari, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Gurmukhi, English and Chinese. Our analysis would broadly encompass a period commencing with the Census of 1901. For the period prior to this, we select a set of figures, derived from a Police Census11 of 1837 that provides an indication of the composition of the city’s population in that period.

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Calcutta Mosaic

Table 1: Communities in Calcutta, 1837 Communities

Number

% of Total Population*

Communities

Number

% of Total population*

English

3,138

1.61

Hindus: Upcountry

East Indians (Eurasians)

4,746

2.43

Portuguese

3181

French

160

Chinese

362

0.19

Arabs

351

0.18

Armenians

636

0.33

Maghs (Burmese)

683

0.35

Jews Muhammadans:

360

0.18

Madrassis (South Indians)

55

0.03

Upcountry

16,677

8.54

Indian Christians

104

0.05

Muhammadans: Bengali

4,567

2.34

Unspecified Lower Orders

19,084

9.77

17,333

8.87

Hindus: Bengali

1,23,318

63.14

1.63

Mughals

527

0.27

0.08

Parsees

40

0.02

Source: Compiled from the Calcutta Police Census, 1837 (See Note 11 for details). * The figure for Total Population has been derived by adding the figures for all communities. Assuming this to be the total population, the percentage shares of the respective communities have been computed.

Table 2: Share of religious groups in Calcutta in the total population, 1901–2001 Religious Groups

1901

1911

Hindus

65.04

69

Muslims

44.7

25.65 21.92 26.00 24.03

12

Christians

2.2

4.24

3.97

0.79*

2.98

Sikhs

1.5

0.13

0.39

0.41

0.56

0.34

0.26

0.25

Buddhists

1921

1931

1941

79.06 68.71

1951

1961

83.41 83.95

0.32

1971 1981 1991 2001 83.13

77.68

12.78

14.19

20.27

1.52

1.40

0.88

0.36

0.34

0.37

0.31

0.29

0.46

0.58

0.60

Jains

0.15

0.2

0.27

Confucians

0.02

0.12

0.11

Zoroastrians

0.04

0.05

0.10

0.06

Jews

0.28

0.22

0.15

0.08

0.46

Source: Census of India, Calcutta City for the respective years.12 * Indian-Christians only

If we can assume that the population of Calcutta in 1837 was a total of the communities listed above, the non-Bengali population constituted

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

29

around 35 per cent, with ‘upcountry’ Muhammadans and Hindus forming the second largest group. The presence of such a wide range of communities – religious and linguistic, from an equally wide hinterland is a characteristic of the demographic profile of the city often brought into focus. Moving our focus to the twentieth century, with the advantage of timeseries data at regular intervals, the decennial census, the concentration of minority communities would be analysed both at the level of the city, and also at a micro-level, the municipal wards. Tables 2 and 3 provide share of the selected religious and linguistic communities in Calcutta, through the last ten decades. As reported in the 1911 census for the city, ‘the cosmopolitan character of Calcutta’s population is emphasized by the fact that no less than 57 different languages have been returned as the mother tongue by its inhabitants’.13 In table 3, 14 of the most spoken languages have been listed. These constitute the common group for which figures were available, though not for all linguistic groups, for all the decades. Table 3: Linguistic groups in Calcutta, 1901 to 1996–97 (share in total population) % of Total Population 1901 Speaking

1911

1921

1931

1951

1961

1971

1996 –97*

Bengali

51.3

49.04

49

55.7

65.6

63.84

59.94

62.9

Hindi

37.6

34.01

34

36.6

20.3

19.34

23.24

28.5

6.7

8.98

11.07

5.2 0.9

Urdu Oriya

7.05 3.6

4.06

2.5

2.3

2.1

1.34

Tamil

0.42

2.4

0.31

0.52

0.42

Gujarati

0.31

0.71

Gurmukhi

0.8

Punjabi

0.19

0.2

0.21

Marwari Rajasthani

1.00

0.2 0.3

0.46 0.19

1.1

0.95

English

3.4

3.11

2.7

2.7

0.6

0.67 0.84

0.5

0.64

0.5

Chinese 0.28 0.3 0.22 Armenian 0.03 0.001 Hebrew 0.07 0.0004 Source: Census of India, Calcutta, for the respective decades. * Based on Nandita Chatterjee, Nikhilesh Bhattacharya and Animesh Haldar, ‘Socio-Economic Profile of Households in Calcutta Metropolitan Area: 1996-1997’, Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, Calcutta, 1999.14

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Calcutta Mosaic

V Initial Arrivals to the City: Representative Communities in Trade Communities which constituted the initial arrivals to the city were the Greeks, Armenians, Portuguese, Jews and others. In fact, going by available figures, the population of Eurasians or Portuguese exceeded that of the English in Calcutta in 1837.

The Armenians and Portuguese Pradip Sinha writes, The peddling sector was a highly interesting element in the physical set-up of historic Calcutta and had a historical dynamism till about the early decades of the 19th century. The Armenians along with the Greeks and Mughals [...] constituted the most significant element in this sector. The Armenians, however, had a more far-flung trade network than any other peddling community…15

As observed by James Long The Armenians are among the oldest residents and their quarter attracts by its antique air, contrasted with conspicuous modern buildings in Calcutta. The Armenians, like the Jews, were famous for their mercantile zeal, and in early days, were much employed by the British as gomasthas – they are to be commended for their always having retained their original dress – they have never had much social intercourse with the British.16

The continuous movement of the Armenians from New Julpha in Ispahan (Persia) is known to be borne out through Armenian testamentary documents of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As observed: The movement of the Armenians between Bombay and Calcutta [...] cannot be adequately documented but a considerable degree of mobility from port to port up to the late 18th century appears quite likely, especially from the nature of their business transactions. Long residence in the inland commercial towns of Bengal-Dacca and Murshidabad imparted to this peripatetic merchant group a local colour.17

Gupta and Chaliha in ‘Barabazar’18 comments: Like some lodestone, Barabazar attracted traders from near and far. The Armenians, the Jews and the Chinese even brought their countrywomen

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

31

with them and settled on the edge of the great Asian bazaar. The Greeks came too, and the Portuguese were already well ensconced. Also, the city witnessed the arrival, around 1850 ‘of a “diversified group” of “oriental heads”, hailing from Turkey to the China sea, bearing spices, incense and drugs; silks and brocades; furs, fruits and gems; shawls and calicoes, Murshidabad and Benaras silks; muslins from Dhaka and broadcloth from England’.

A K Roy comments, With the growth of heterogeneous population came the necessity of allotting particular areas to particular races. Thus, shortly after the English came, the Portuguese who were the only people who kept fowls, the rest of the inhabitants being Hindus to whom fowls are forbidden, were allotted a quarter which came to be designated as Murgihatta, and the Armenians a tola or division which was named Armanitola...

This was located in an intermediate zone between ‘the Hindu and the Christian town’. They built a church as early as 1724, south of Bara Bazaar, ‘in their own quarter’.19 The Portuguese lived close to the Armenians and ‘raised a small brick church in 1700’.20 As reported in the 1921 census on the Armenians: This flourishing community takes an active part in the business of the city and for its size owns a great deal of house property. There has been a definite movement on its part into the European quarters which has added to the difficulty which Europeans have had of recent years in finding accommodation.21

These descriptions of the sites of concentration of immigrant communities seldom substantiated by statistics, are often borne out by parallel sources. Cartographic sources, as mentioned earlier, provide ample evidence through nomenclatures of localities, roads, religious institutions, markets, etc. For example, Armanitola, a locality inhabited by the Armenians or the Armenian Church shown in Map No. 1, illustrates a section of Central Calcutta. The population of Armenians was reported to be 636 in number as early as 1837. This figure went up to 809 in 1911, and gradually dropped till it reached the nominal figure of 39 in 1961. The 1921 census reports that increase was recorded between 1911 and 1921. As shown in Table 4, figures for the ward-wise distribution of the community are available only for 1911 and 1961.

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Calcutta Mosaic

Map 1: Part of Central Calcutta inhabited by several minority communities (Based on Dass, Ramanath, Kalikatar Naksha, 1884). Table 4: Major concentrations of Armenians ward-wise, 1911–61 (as percentage of total Armenians in Calcutta) 1911

1961

18.17 Park Street (16)

33.3 Ward 13

17.68 Collinga (15)

30.8 Ward 12

11.12 Fenwick Bazar (13)

28.3 Ward 59

9.02 Ballygunge & Tollygunge (21) Total 809

Total 39

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

33

Within a span of fifty years, the strength of the community dropped. Very interestingly, from their known areas of concentration in Armanitola, east of Clive Street in north-central Calcutta, the Armenians shifted to the more central wards of Park Street, Colinga, and even as far southeast as Ballygunj and Tollygunj in 1911. In fifty years, not only did the population dwindle to a mere 39, their locations also changed significantly. When and why this shift took place is worth studying.

High

Medium

Low/Medium

Low

Map 2: Concentration of Armenians in Calcutta, 1911, 1961.

The Jews The arrival of the Jews was dated to be much later than the Armenians. In Calcutta ‘the first Jewish settler did not probably arrive from Aleppo (via Surat) before 1798. By 1816 there were perhaps fifty Jews in the city.’22 Pradip Sinha gives an interesting account of the factors that were responsible for this migration: The Jews of Calcutta were generally of Baghdadi origin and their migration was prompted by a series of revolutions in Baghdad which had weakened the position of Jewish financiers. These refugees arriving in Calcutta from the late 18th century onwards formed part of a string of trading posts stretching from Shanghai to London. The earliest immigrants continued the traditional

34

Calcutta Mosaic

trade in horses and precious stones with the various Persian Gulf ports and also started trading with the British in commodities such as wool and opium.23

Another source reports the fact that ‘the 19th century witnessed an influx of Jews from Yemen, Iraq, Basra and Syria’.24 The Baghdadi Jews were known to have flourished under the protection of the East India Company and the British Government. Representative of the community were the areas of Kalutala and Bow Bazaar. Soumitra Das writes in The Telegraph in December 2006: ‘By the late 19th century, Calcutta’s Jewry had adopted a European lifestyle. They lived in Armenian Street and Bow Bazaar areas but gradually moved south of Park street.’25 This is borne out by the census figures between1901 and 1961, where the major concentrations more or less remained within Kalutola, Bara Bazaar, Bow Bazaar and Fenwick Bazaar in central Calcutta, with its total strength declining from 1889 to 1165. This figure has gone down to 39 in 2006. ‘So fast are the Jews vanishing from the Calcutta scene that services cannot be held any longer because not more than five to six people get together at the synagogue, less than the minimum figure of 10 to reach quorum.’ 26

Very High

High

Medium

Low/Medium

Map 3: Concentration of Jews in Calcutta, 1901, 1961.

Low

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

35

Table 5: Concentrations of Jews in Calcutta ward-wise, 1911–61 (as percentage of total Jews in Calcutta) 1901 37.80 Colootola (8) 31.66 Burra Bazar (7) 10.59 Bowbazar (10) 4.71 Moocheepara (9) Total 1889

1911 44.55 Kalutola (8) 15.48 Barabazar (7) 13.13 Bowbazar (10) 8.34 Fenwick Bazar (13) Total 1919

1931 31.22 Bow Bazar (10) 21.54 Kalutola (8) 9.95 Kalinga (15) 7.65 Fenwick Bazar (13) Total 1829

1961 78.97 Ward 42 5.58 Ward 53 4.46 Ward 40

Total 1165

The Zoroastrians / Parsis ‘The earliest known and recorded history of a Parsi 27 in Calcutta commences in 1767 with the arrival of Dadabhoy Behramji Banaji from Surat.’28 The community grew in strength thereafter. As observed, ‘because of the city’s geographical location, the two mainstays of Calcutta’s prosperity were shipping and the jute trade. Parsi families were known to have been in the vanguard in both sectors.’ The Parsis in Calcutta, ‘have made their own mark in entrepreneurship, industriousness and sportsmanship’.29 They were a group that adopted and identified with the colonizer’s Western education, culture, and colonial authority much more than any other Indian community.30 And, similar to many others of the city, they declined in power and prosperity with the departure of the British. Table 6: Major concentrations of Zoroastrians in Calcutta ward-wise, 1901–61 (as percentage of total Zoroastrians in Calcutta) 1901 1931 63.10 31.36 Burra Bazar (7) Kalootola (8) 9.66 22.27 Waterloo Street (12) Fenwick Bazar (13) 7.59 15.10 Colootola (8) Bow Bazar (10) 7.59 11.93 Bowbazar (10) Taltola (14) Total 290 Total 1199 Source: Census of India, Calcutta, for the respective years.

1961 31.18 Ward 52 21.15 Ward 72 19.00 Ward 60 17.20 Ward 55 Total 279

Figures for the Zoroastrian community were not returned in all the decennial censuses between 1901 and 2001. In the years that they were available, their share in the population of the city never exceeded one per cent. Similar to most other minority communities, the major concentration of the Parsis or Zoroastrians were found to be in the west-central and

36

Calcutta Mosaic

central wards of Bara Bazaar, Kalutola, Bow Bazaar, Fenwick Bazaar, Taltollah, etc. The community dispersed to the outer wards of southeast and south Calcutta by 1961. And, by the early nineties, the population of the Parsis was reported to have gone up to a thousand.31

Very High

High

Medium

Low/Medium

Low

Map 4: Concentration of Zoroastrians/Parsis in Calcutta, 1901, 1961.

VI Occupational Diversities The Chinese Community in Calcutta ‘Of the foreign communities that have made Calcutta their home, the Chinese are the only ones to remain and prosper as much as before.’32 It is the ‘community [that] has sustained its recreation of a “little China” on Indian soil’.33 These are observations made in the early 1990s. We get references to Chinese settlements in the city as early as 1837, when 362 Chinese were enumerated in Calcutta, a figure which went up to 847, accounting for about 0.2 per cent of its population in the 1850s. By the first decade of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, Chinese tanners, shoemakers, carpenters, dentists, mechanics and artisans became wellknown for their skill and ingenuity. Gradually, the community diversified into various occupations, one of the most well known in today’s Calcutta

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

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being the Chinese eateries. They have not been known ‘to find remunerative employment in spite of the difficulties of language’. From their initial concentration in central Calcutta in the neighbourhood of Bentinck Street in Kasaitola, Phears Lane etc., they moved to their second nucleus in the low-lying, swampy terrain at Tangra in east Calcutta. Chinepara, or the locality inhabited by the Chinese, and the Chinese Church bear evidence to the existence of the community in central Calcutta (Map 1). Another major concentration today is connected with the large tanneries in Tangra in the east Calcutta lowlands, many of which have undergone transformations into restaurants serving Chinese cuisine – very popular among the city’s populace. It is unfortunate that figures for the community at the level of the municipal wards have not been enumerated prior to 1961, where the figures for the Chinese speaking population as a linguistic category is available. We thus have no option but to surmise from related sources and roughly demarcate their territorial limits and spread through the use of linguistic and religious categories that can be linked to the Chinese. In 1961, they were concentrated primarily in wards 52, 53 and 75, 76. In Chinatown or Chinepara, Buddhism, Christianity and Confucianism have been seen to coexist. Yet, all the three religious categories could also be related to communities other than the Chinese. Since, of the three mentioned above, the Confucians are generally seen to be almost coterminous with the Chinese in Calcutta, we will use figures for the concentration of this religious group to roughly delineate the spaces of the Chinese community. The Confucian community consists mainly of Chinese shoemakers, carpenters and cabinetmakers of Bentinck Street, which is the boundary between Waterloo Street and the Bara Bazaar wards. Since most of the Buddhists in Calcutta are of the Chinese community, the distribution of Buddhists in the city are ‘practically coincident with that of the Chinese’. It is important to note that throughout the period between 1911 and 1961, Kalutola, in central Calcutta, one of the smallest wards in terms of its area, known for its cosmopolitan character from the very beginning, was home to almost the whole populace of Confucians in the city. For Buddhists, most of whom have been reported to be Chinese, less than half the population resided in Kalutola, a share which went down subsequently. As observed in the 1901 census, Bow Bazaar is the chief Christian centre containing 13.7 per cent of the total Chinese population of the town.34 It would be interesting to find out the breakdown of the Chinese population into the component religious categories, the Confucians, Buddhists and Christians, to help us locate this community in more definite spatial terms.

38

Calcutta Mosaic

Table 7: Concentration of Buddhists in Calcutta ward-wise, 1911–61 (as percentage of the total number of Buddhists in Calcutta) 1901 40.72 Colootola (8) 35.41 Bowbazar (10) 2.96 Waterloo St. (12)

Total 2,903

1931 19.07 Bow Bazar (10) 17.84 Kalootola (8) 12.28 Waterloo St. (12) 5.93 Taltola (14) 5.30 Fenwick Bazar (13) Total 3,021

1961 29.45 Ward 40 15.69 Ward 42 10.02 Ward 41 7.64 Ward 76 3.70 Ward 75 Total 8,848

Table 8: Major concentrations of Confucians in Calcutta ward-wise, 1911–61 (as percentage of the total number of Confucians in Calcutta) 1911 1931 1961 87.12 95.23 100.00 Kalutola (8) Kalootola (8) Ward 41 11.71 1.98 Paddapukur (11) Fenwick Bazar (13) Total 1,033 Total 1,363 Total 70

Two factors would be worth noting from the two tables above. First, and quite expectedly, there is some overlap in the concentrations of Buddhists and Confucians in Kalutola. It would be interesting to find out whether this area still retains its character today. Second, almost the whole community of Confucians retained their concentration in Kalutola for the five decades for which figures are available, whereas the Buddhists were dispersed, although in relatively contiguous wards. As observed in a study on the Chinese community based primarily on the 1961 census figures and field surveys, with the tables given above, the Chinese population was largely concentrated around Lower Chitpur Road, Bow Bazar Street and Bentinck Street (Wards 40, 41, 42), an area accounting for ‘nearly two third of their population’, around Elliot Road (Ward 53), and around Topsia and Tangra (Ward 76).35 ‘The areas of concentration of the Chinese population are either cosmopolitan in nature or are in closer proximity to the districts of Muslim and Anglo-Indian population.’ Occupational associations was one of the reasons for this close spatial proximity to the Muslims. Shoe making of the Chinese depended for its essential raw material, hide and skin, on the ‘Hindustani speaking Muslims’, the main centre for which was close to China Town, located in Ward 40 of Calcutta in 1961.36 Although the Chinese speaking population has increased considerably between 1901 and 1961, ‘the inflow of the Chinese to India has in recent

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

39

years stopped’, as is evident ‘from the census figures that have been taken from a number of families living in Calcutta’.37

High

Medium

Low

Map 5: Concentration of Confucians in Calcutta, 1911, 1961.

VII Other Religious Communities The organization of religious communities has shown marked variation, both spatially and temporally. The figures at the level of the municipal wards are reflective of this, often departing from the city’s averages illustrated in Table 1. The residential choices of immigrant or minority communities, as mentioned earlier, have primarily been related to occupational factors. This fact may be difficult to substantiate for most communities, whether religious or linguistic. Our analysis in this context would have to rely on studies made on individual communities, or on other sources. In our period of analysis, 1901–2001, the Hindus have throughout formed the preponderant majority amongst the religious groups in the city. In 1961, in 74 out of 80 wards, Hindus constituted the majority.

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Calcutta Mosaic

The Muslims or Muhammadans take the second place. Thus, when we talk of religious minorities, the Muslims head the list, followed by Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and several others. The relative positions of religious groups in the city have not altered much, although in terms of spatial concentrations there have been marked transformations.

The Muslims Not only numerically, even spatially the Muslims constitute a significant component of the city’s demographic profile. There is hardly any municipal ward in the city that does not have Muslim presence. In their areas of major concentration, often in contiguous wards, they constitute a significant numerical group. Table 9: Concentrations of Muslims ward-wise, 1911–61 % of Muslims Wards / Areas in in the total 1911 1921 1931 population Very high Kalutola, Ballygunj & Kalutola, (more than Taltola, Tollygunj, Beniapukur, 50%) Beniapukur, Alipore Garden Reach Ekbalpore High/Medium Bowbazar, (35-49.99%) Fenwick Bazar, Colinga, Ballygunj– Tollygunj Medium Sukea’s St., (20-34.99%) Muchipara, Park St., Baman Bustee, Hastings, Entally

Kalutola, Fenwick Bazar, Colinga, Beniapukur, Ekbalpore Muchipara, Bowbazar, Hastings, Entally, Watgunj

Fenwick Bazar, Taltola, Colinga, Ballygunj, Ekbalpore, Maniktala Muchipara, Bowbazar, Park St., Baman Bustee, Tengra, Entally, Alipore, Watgunj & Hastings, Beliaghata, Belgachhia, Cossipore Low/Medium Shampukur, Shampukur, Shampukur, (5–19.99%) Bartala, Bartala, Bartala, Jorasanko, Jorasanko, Sukea St., Barabazar, Barabazar, Jorasanko, Waterloo St., Waterloo St., Barabazar, Alipore Part St., Waterloo St., Victoria Bhawanipore, Terrace, Tollygunj, Bhawanipore Satpukur

1941

1961

Kalutola, Taltola, Ballygunj, Watgunj & Hastings Fenwick Bazar, Colinga, Maniktala

51, 57, 60

Muchipara, Bowbazar, Part St., Tengra, Entally, Garden Reach, Beliaghata, Belgachia

23, 31-33, 50, 53, 54, 56

Bartola, Sukea St., Jorasanko, Barabazar Paddapukur, Waterloo St., Baman Bustee, Bhawanipore, Ekbalpore, Tollygunj, Satpukur

1, 3, 5, 13, 16, 21, 22, 27, 29, 34, 35,37, 39, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 65, 69, 71, 75, 76, 78

45, 55, 74

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

% of Muslims in the total population

1911

1921

Low (less than 5%)

Kumartoli, Jorabagan, Paddapukur

Kumartuli, Jorabagan, Paddapukur

41

Wards / Areas in 1931 Kumartuli, Jorabagan, Paddapukur

1941 Shampooker Kumartuli, Jorabagan

1961 2, 4, 610, 11, 12, 14, 15, 1720, 2426, 28, 30, 36, 43, 44, 46, 6164, 6668, 70, 72, 77, 79, 80

The spatial organization of the Muslims differed somewhat from the majority of other communities that settled in the city for various reasons. This community was represented by several linguistic groups, including Bengalis. Nirmal Kumar Bose has mapped the spaces of the Muslims on two basic divisions – into Bengalis and non-Bengalis; and into upper, middle and lower classes. ‘The Moslem population’, he writes, ‘although it is not fractioned by caste, is quite explicitly stratified by class’. Bose demarcates ‘two large Moslem quarters’ that ‘surround the places of residence in the southwest and south of the city that were furnished by the East India Company to the Nawab of Oudh and the descendants of Tipoo Sultan of Mysore’. The middle class commercial people of the community lived in wards near the central business district, whereas ‘lower class Moslems live in the tenement and slum districts of the east and northeast and in large tracts of the city surrounding the old centers of the Moslem aristocracy in the south and southwest’.38 The bulk of the labour employed in the factories of the northern, eastern and southern parts of the city were immigrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, both Hindus and Muslims, and constituted a bulk of the Hindi speaking communities. They formed a significant part of the lone males who came to the city in search of work and accounted for a male–female ratio of 60:40, described by Bose as one of the ‘extraordinary facts of the city’s demography’.39 Unlike a majority of communities, one cannot relate the Muslims with any specific occupational category. Of the economic pursuits that they became part of, a representative list is given below. This is drawn from a study made on the ethnic communities of Calcutta, based on the Census of 1961, in which ‘certain broad generalizations’ were made ‘about the spatial organization of Muslims in Calcutta’.40

42

Calcutta Mosaic

Very High

High

Medium

Low/Medium

Low

Map 6: Share of Muslims in the total population, ward-wise, 1911, 1931 & 1961.

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

43

Table 10: Muslim concentrations and occupational categories, 1961 Pockets of Concentration

Ward Nos.

Area around

% of Total Muslim Population

Functions/Occupations

Pocket 1

23,40, 41

Waterloo St., Bentinck St., Chitpur Rd

10.34

Area of miscellaneous retail & wholesale trade

Pocket 2

31

Rajabajar

2.44

Small household industries

Pocket 3

51, 53, 55, 57, 60

Large central belt in Chowringhee, Taltola, Entally, Park Circus, Karaya

26.73

Area of wide occupational diversity connected with the city’s commerce, industry & transport

Pocket 4

73, 74

AlipurKidderpore area

10.36

Area functionally connected with the activities in the Kidderpore dockyard commerce & household enterprises in readymade garments & factory industries

Source: Tabulated on the basis of the study by Biswas, Arabinda, Chatterjee, Partha and Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, ‘The Ethnic Composition of Calcutta and the Residential Pattern of Minorities’, p. 143 (See Note 5).

The Christians It has been remarked: In terms of spatial distribution [...] this community shows a far more compact picture than do the Muslims [...] The Christian & Muslim belts of Calcutta, particularly those in the central parts of the city, present a picture of convergence, coincidence and coexistence to a considerable degree. Whether spatial coexistence should be given a premium over the phenomenon of residential enclaves of individual communities, remains to be seen.41

The Christian population of Calcutta, though next to Muslims in numerical strength, remained less than 2 per cent of the total population throughout the twentieth century. The major areas of concentration were around Elliot Road, Wellesley Street, Free School Street, Park Street, Chowringhee and Lower Circular Road, in a more or less spatially contiguous tract. These form a residential cum commercial belt in which Muslims and Anglo-Indians (who were Christians) reside. In fact Park

44

Calcutta Mosaic

Street and Chowringhee areas were known to constitute the more affluent localities. Between 1911 and 1921, there was reported to be ‘a tendency for Christians to leave the north end of the town’, and to ‘spread considerably into the suburbs and in the directions of Ballygunge & Alipore, & though there has been a considerable increase in their numbers in the block enclosed by Dharamtola St, Chowringhee, & Lower Circular Rd the Christian community cannot be said to be drawing together into this locality.’42 Table 11: Concentrations of Christians in Calcutta ward-wise, 1901–61 (as percentage of total Christians in Calcutta) 1901 13.47 Bowbazar (10) 9.19 Taltollah (14) 9.12 Fenwick Bazar (13) 6.79 Entally (19)

1911 11.61 Bowbazar (10) 10.92 Taltola (14) 9.55 Fenwick Bazar (13) 8.76 Entally (19)

1931 11.38 Taltola (14) 8.65 Fenwick Bazar (13) 7.80 Kalinga (15) 5.78 Bow Bazar (10)

1961 19.01 Ward 53 9.39 Ward 51 9.36 Ward 55 6.67 Ward 50

Total 37,925

Total 36,510

Total 47,558

Total 52,134

Another set of figures relating to the concentration of Christians is illustrative of a different angle. In terms of the share of Christian population to the total population in each ward, a different set of wards, compared to those in Table 11 seems to come to the forefront. The relative size of the population is no doubt a case in point, but what is significant is the preponderance of Christians, where it forms the majority religion, in wards that do not figure in the earlier table, due possibly to their lesser shares in the total population of Christians in the city. It would be interesting to note that Park Street accounted for around 5 per cent and Bamun Bustee 2 per cent of the city’s Christian population, whereas the share of Christians was around 47 and 39 per cent of the population of the respective wards. Table12: Share of Christians in the total population of wards (in percentage) Wards Baman Bustee Park Street Colinga Waterloo Street Bowbazar Taltola Fenwick Bazar

1911 36.51 28.60 22.20 21.91 16.95 12.42 12.26

1931 39.60 47.39 26.39 18.37 13.03 14.08 13.28

Unlike many other religious groups, the Christians encompass a diverse range of linguistic communities – from Europeans, Chinese, Eurasians, to

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

45

Indian-Christians, the latter itself representative of several linguistic groups. A set of figures relating to the composition of Christians in 1911 shows that the distribution is almost one-third each for European and allied races, Eurasians, and Indian-Christians. Table 13: Composition of Christians, 1911 Components of Christian Population European & Allied Races Anglo-Indians

Number 14,127

Percentage to total Christians 36.15

14,177

35.84

Indian-Christians

11,077

28.01

Total Christians

39,551

100.00

The Anglo-Indians ‘Outside the cosmopolitan sector of the intermediate town, the ethnic composition [...] changed along with the economic and cultural preoccupations of the groups distributed over the space of the intermediate town.’ This zone, ‘demonstrated from the late 18th century a complex ethnicity associated with various groups of the so-called Eurasians.’43 The term ‘Eurasian’ was replaced by ‘Anglo-Indian’, though it was not until 1911 that the latter was officially accepted. Anglo-Indians constituted the largest share of the Christian population in that year, as illustrated in the figures in Table 13. ‘Although a small minority in the population of India’, it was found that ‘they are the only such community of mixed descent to survive in Asia as a recognizable entity’.44 Kuntala Lahiri says: Till the latter half of the eighteenth century [...] there was little difference in position between Anglo-Indians and Europeans proper [...] Members of the community were given generous allocations of posts in defence and administration. The Anglo-Indians grew rapidly in wealth, social power and status; they also soon outnumbered the British in India.’45

Following a phase in which the entry of the community was restricted to the spheres of higher military and civil posts, their services were geared once again in the mid-nineteenth century with the inauguration of the railways, telegraph and postal system. Their occupations have undergone broad changes over time, as briefly mentioned above. Writing on the community, Pradip Sinha elaborates on the occupational shifts, based on evidence from the New Calcutta Directory of 1856. About the Directory he says:

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Calcutta Mosaic

[It] produces substantial evidence on the occupational pattern in Eurasian or Anglo-Indian localities. A shift away from white collar jobs on the part of residents of Anglo-Indian neighbourhoods was already noticeable in the middle of the 19th century. This was probably at the cost of the intellectual and literary promise of a section of the Eurasian community in the early 19th century [...] Some of the earliest English seminaries were dominated by Eurasian teachers who imparted elementary English instruction...46

Although references to the community have been made often, consistent figures of their magnitude at the ward-level can be found only in the three census decades, 1911–1931. Table 14 and Map 7 illustrate the concentration of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta. Located in pockets of a mixed ethnic zone, this community was isolated from other Indian groups from the outset.

High

Medium

Low

Map 7: Concentration of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta, 1911, 1931. With the granting of Independence in 1947, there has been a marked exodus of Anglo-Indians to several English-speaking countries – United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, among others. ‘But simultaneously’, as observed, ‘there was a new patriotic development among such AngloIndians has remained. To them India was home’.47 Bow Barracks, the block of flats constructed by the Calcutta Improvement Trust, still houses

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

47

a considerable section of the Anglo-Indian and Chinese communities, and though currently facing demolition, stands testimony to the preponderance of the community at some point in history. Table 14: Concentrations of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta ward-wise, 1911–31 (as percentage of total Anglo-Indians in Calcutta) 1911 21.26 Bow Bazar (8) 12.53 Taltola (14) 10.89 Kalutola (8) 9.49 Entally (19) 9.05 Fenwick Bazar (13) 8.47 Paddapukur (11) 6.43 Collinga (15)

1921 25.1 Bow Bazar (10) 14.0 Taltola (14) 12.4 Entally (19) 8.9 Fenwick Bazar (13) 6.5 Colinga (15) 5.2 Paddapukur (11) 4.1 Kalutola (8)

1931 14.04 Taltola (14) 13.73 Bow Bazar (10) 12.08 Entally (19) 11.36 Fenwick Bazar (13) 11.26 Kalinga (15) 8.19 Paddapukur (11) 4.42 Ekbalpore (24)

Total 14050

Total 13599

Total 16728

VIII Selected Indian Communities The Marwaris Of all the minority communities of Indian origin who have made their homes in almost all corners of the subcontinent, the Marwaris would probably be ranked among the first few. It was in the 1820s that they started coming to Calcutta. ‘After the construction of the railroad connecting Calcutta to upcountry regions in the 1850s and 1860s, the influx of Hindispeaking north Indian and Marwari traders became much more pronounced.’48 Anne Hardgrove, in her book on the Marwari community in Calcutta, is of the opinion that, ‘in Calcutta, the identity “Marwari” came into official usage only in the last decade of the nineteenth century, with the foundation of the Marwari associations and chambers of commerce in civil society’. She further observes that ‘it was colonial capitalism that prompted traders from Rajasthan, some of whom were already trading on Mughal routes, to go to the colonial metropolis.’49 Bara Bazaar, or the ‘Great Bazaar’, a business nucleus in northwest Calcutta, has existed in some form before the arrival of the British over three hundred years ago, and has always been known as the traditional locality of the Marwaris. This densely built up zone ‘forms the more immediate context of Marwari mapping among Bengalis’, as observed by

48

Calcutta Mosaic

Hardgrove. ‘Though Barabazar is cosmopolitan in the sense that traders of all backgrounds have worked and lived here, since the 1870s it has acquired a Marwari identity.’50 Few families permanently settled since the mid-nineteenth century. ‘The First World War proved to be a windfall for the Marwaris: they traded, speculated and undertook contracts.’ Sukumar Mitra and Amita Prasad observes: The Marwari community [...] has been changing its ethos, swiftly and consciously, since the Second World War and Independence [...] Today’s Marwaris may be broadly divided into three categories [...] Most of them – of varied mentality and very unequal means still live in Barabazar in much the traditional way. Then there is a fair-sized intermediate group, affluent and well-educated, with abundant worldly ambition but new social and cultural aspirations as well; and finally, a small, exclusive, immensely wealthy and powerful body controlling large interests in trade, industry and finance [...] [The] two latter groups have moved out of Barabazar into other localities: Baliganj, Salt Lake, and at the top of the ladder, Alipur.51

Thus ‘Barabazar and Alipore are the two poles of Calcutta’s Marwari society today’. This transformation from a ‘Barabazar trader’ to ‘an Indian industrialist with an eye on the world market was seen ‘not merely’ as ‘an economic change’, but ‘as a cultural revolution as well.’ It is unfortunate that we cannot furnish ward-wise figures for this marked change. Table 15: Concentration of Jains in Calcutta ward-wise, 1901–61 (as percentage of total Jains in Calcutta) 1901 63.90 Colootola (8) 28.04 Jorabagan (5) 6.04 Moocheepara/Balliaghata (9)

1931 36.86 Burra Bazar (7) 12.87 Bow Bazar (10) 11.62 Kalootola (8) 5.43 Taltola (14)

1941 40.30 Bara Bazar (7) 29.90 Jorabagan (5) 5.58 Colootola (8)

Total 1,241

Total 3,185

Total 6,689

1961 15.21 (Ward 27) 12.02 (Ward 21) 10.21 (Ward 35) 9.06 (Ward 25) 7.13 (Ward 26) Total 13,534

Table 16: Major concentrations of Marwaris in Calcutta ward-wise, 1961 % of Total Ward Population with the Areas of Concentration

% of Total Marwaris in Calcutta with the Areas of Concentration

16.56 Around Barabazar (Ward 25) 6.41 Around Barabazar (Ward 27) 4.99 Around Jorasanko (Ward 19)

62.31 Around Barabazar (Ward 25) 11.98 Around Jorasanko (Ward 19) 10.99 Around Barabazar (Ward 27)

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

49

The Sikhs The Sikhs have had a very long association with the city. ‘Sikh soldiers serving the colonial army’ were known to be ‘present here in the postMutiny years’.52 Subsequently, ‘traders from Punjab visited Calcutta as the railways significantly reduced the distance between the two wings of the empire’. The concentration of Sikhs in Alipore, and subsequently in the densely populated trading wards of central Calcutta bears evidence to this. In the early years of the twentieth century, the metropolis witnessed the introduction of modern surface communication system. It sent important signals to many Sikhs interested in owning or driving different forms of automobiles.53

Moving out from the densely settled areas of central Calcutta because of high rents and inadequate space for running their transport business, the Sikhs took advantage of the sparsely inhabited localities of the south, namely around Bhawanipore. Initially a suburb of Calcutta and part of the development plans of the Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT), the area was being opened out with tramlines and improved thoroughfares. Its contiguity to the institutional complexes of the colonial government: courts, offices of the administration, hospitals and educational institutions resulted in a spurt of residential development in the early decades of the twentieth century, markedly altering its demographic character. People belonging to varied linguistic and religious groups, and varied professions, gradually assembled in this area, known for its traditional economic and settlement base. The Russa Road of the early twenties, running southwards from Chowringhee, where the work of the CIT had ‘started a new urbanising process’ vis-à-vis the old settlement base in the west along the Adi Ganga, almost marked a divide between the old and the new. It was in the early twenties that ‘a new community element was introduced’ into this area ‘with the advent of the Sikhs, many of whom, on retirement from military service, took to professions connected with transport’. The nucleus of Sikh settlements was a French Taxi Company, ‘which trained them to be drivers’. It was ‘from drivers [that] they became owners mainly after the Second World War’, and moved into ‘transport business, carriage of goods in trucks and lorries, and ownership of shops selling motor parts’,54 etc. Many other occupational pursuits were associated with the community. As noted, many ‘big industrial organisations, commercial warehouses, factories, among others employed Sikhs as security guards’, and ‘the rise of Calcutta as the most important port of embarkation for emigration to the different countries’ also ‘served as an additional stimulus to the growing Sikh presence in eastern India’.55

50

Calcutta Mosaic

The establishment of gurdwaras, the religious institution of the community, in different locales of the city is an indication of the growing presence of this community over time. They stretch from Bara Bazaar in north-central Calcutta to locations in the south such as Bhawanipore, Garcha, Paddapukur, Kalighat and Bakulbagan, the latter being identified as ‘marking almost the northern limit of their habitation’ in the south, while the one near the Rashbehari Avenue-Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road crossing probably marks the southern extreme. The spread of the community, initially represented by male-migration, then to family settlements, from its initial nucleus in the Bara Bazaar, Kalutola areas and Alipore, to Bhawanipore and Kalighat, is amply substantiated from its ward-wise distribution over the major part of the last century (Map 8), and could be clearly related to the occupational shifts from trade and military services to transport businesses. ‘With the consequent birth of new generation of population born outside Punjab’, says Himadri Banerjee, the well known scholar on the Sikh community, ‘the Calcutta-Sikh population steadily transformed itself from an “immigrant to a minority community”’.56 Table 17: Concentrations of Sikhs ward-wise, 1911–61 (as percentage of total Sikhs in Calcutta in each decade) 1911

1921

1931

1941

1961

33.21 Alipore (23)

36.29 Bhawanipore (22)

44.87 Bhawanipur (22)

33.81 Bhawanipore (22)

10.49 Ward 70

11.22 Jorasanko (6)

22.11 Ballygunge & Tollygunge (21)

12.84 Tollygunj (27)

14.36 Tollygunj (27)

9.59 Ward 59

9.23 Bowbazar (10)

10.82 Kalutola (8)

12.03 Ballygunge (21)

9.44 Ballygunj (21)

5.31 Ward 39

7.42 Paddapukur (11)

9.89 Jorasanko (6)

6.23 Kalutola (8)

7.02 Alipore (23)

6.33 Ballygunge & Tollygunge (21)

4.94 Bowbazar (10)

4.61 Garden Reach (26)

Total 1,105

Total 1,072

Total 4,705

Total 8,456

Total 14,198

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

High

Medium

51

Low

Map 8: Concentration of Sikhs in Calcutta, 1901, 1911, 1931 & 1961.

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Calcutta Mosaic

Selected Minority Communities Apart from the communities discussed above, there are others who are equally significant elements of the city’s demographic profile in terms of their economic, social and cultural dimensions. Two basic facts should be noted while discussing these groups. First, time-series data are not available for many of these linguistic communities prior to 1961. Second, most of them are present, even though not in significant numbers, in many wards of the city today. Third, their relative shares in the total population of the wards in which they have been enumerated are not very significant with the exception of a few, such as those speaking Hindi.

Hindi-Speaking Communities Of the linguistic groups in the city of Calcutta, Hindi speakers are numerically second to the language of the majority, Bengali.57 Table 18: Concentrations of Hindi-speaking population ward-wise, 1921–61 Share in the Total 1921 Population of the Wards Very High Jorabagan (5), Barabazar (7), (above 50%) Kalutola (8), Waterloo St. (12), Park St. (16), Victoria Terrace (17) High Bow Bazar (10), (35-49.9%) Fenwick Bazar (13), Taltola (14), Colinga (15), Alipore (23), Ekbalpore (24), Watgunje (25) Medium Bartola (3), Sukea St. (4), (20-34.9%) Muchipara (9), Bhawanipore (22)

Low/Medium Shampukur (1), (5-19.9%) Kumartuli (2), Paddapukur (11) Low (less than 5%)

none

1931

1961

Burra Bazar (7), Kalutola (8), 25, 26 Beniapukur (20), Maniktola (29), Belgachia (30), Cossipore (32) Jorabagan (5), Bow Bazar (10), 21, 24, 27, Waterloo St.(12), Fenwick 38, 52, 73 Bazar (13), Taltola (14), Colinga (15), Intally (19), Ballygunge (21), Garden Reach (26) Bartola (3), Sukea St. (4), 1, 3, 8, 16, 17, 18, Jorasanko (6), Muchipara (9), 20, 22, 23, 28, 29 Baman Bustee* (17), 34, 37, 39, 41, 42, Bhawanipur (22), 47, 48, 49, 54, 58 Satpukur (31) 63, 69, 70, 71, 75 Shampukur (1), Kumartuli (2), 2, 4–15, 31–33, Paddapukur (11), Park St. (16), 35, 36, 40, Alipore (23), Tollygunge (27) 43–46, 50, 51, 53, 55–57, 59–62 none 79, 80

Note: *Victoria Terrace and Baman Bustee are the same wards.

As reported in the 1931 census the decrease [of Hindustani] in Park Street and Baman Bustee correspond to considerable increases in the proportion of Bengalis [...] Hindustani speaking population shifted eastwards into Beniapukur where a considerable increase has been

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

Very High

High

Medium

Low/Medium

53

Low

Map 9: Share of Hindi-speakers to the total population of wards, 1931, 1961. commented upon as well as to Ballygunge, where there has been an apparent increase possibly due [...] to the redistribution of the old combined ward of Ballygunge & Tollygunj.58 Presented below is a list of wards in 1961, in which the concentrations of selected linguistic communities are illustrated. Communities have been selected on the basis of their importance in Calcutta’s economy and society, and on their spatial dispersions in the city. Only those wards have been included that have at least 5 per cent of their total population belonging to the respective communities. Table 19 illustrates that with the exception of the Oriyas, Gujaratis, English and Chinese, which had a wider spatial coverage, other linguistic groups were not represented in any marked way. After Bengali, Hindi and Urdu, English is the most-spoken language in many parts of the city which were occupied in the pre-independence period by the English, Anglo-Indians and other English-speaking communities. This linguistic group had a marked presence in a few wards. It would be difficult to relate in numerical terms the English-speaking populace within any particular community.

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Calcutta Mosaic

Table 19: Concentrations of selected linguistic minorities, 1961 Linguistic Minorities Indian Communities Marwari Rajasthani Gurmukhi** Punjabi Oriya Gujarati Tamil Other Communities English Chinese

Wards with more than 5% of Total Population Speaking the Language* 25, 27 27 None None 54, 38, 37, 43, 28 27, 37, 39, 41 64 53, 54, 51, 39 40, 39, 52, 53 & 75, 76

Source: Computed from the Census of India, 1961. * Wards arranged in a descending order of the share of the linguistic group to the total population of the ward. ** Gurmukhi is the name of a script, but given in the census as a mother tongue.59 We have kept to the census definition to avoid confusion.

English

Chinese

High

Medium

Map 10: Share of Linguistic Communities in the total ward population, 1961.

Low

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

Marwari

Oriya

Tamil

Gujarati

High

Medium

55

Low

Map 11: Concentration of Linguistic Communities in the total ward population, 1961.

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IX Immigrants in Calcutta: Spatial Distribution There has been rapid immigration into the city since the pre-colonial days. We have some idea of the numerical strength of the communities that came to reside in the city in the mid-nineteenth century and after 1901, as illustrated in Table 1, 2 and 3. The concentration, ward-wise, of individual immigrant groups can also be studied, as we have shown, for the same period. Yet the spatial concentration of total immigrants is difficult to gauge for our entire period of analysis, though the census reports throughout the century have reported on the magnitude of immigration to the city. The Census for 1921 provides an idea of the share of immigrants to the population of each ward in the city in that year. This we could take as being representative. The 1901 census reported that ‘about 65.7% of the population of the town of Calcutta is immigrant, against 87.9% of the suburban population’. The wide divergence in figures between the city and suburbs, also present in the larger number of female immigrants in the latter, is explained thus: the congested part of the greater part of the town area does not admit of much family life. Married people are often obliged to live in the suburban areas where rent is lower, while large numbers of the labouring classes who reside in the town have to leave their women and children in their muffasil home... 60 Table 20: Immigrants in Calcutta ward-wise, 1921 Ward Nos.

Names of Wards

1. 2. 3. 4.

Calcutta Municipal Area Shampukur Kumartuli Bartola Sukea Street

5. 6. 7. 8.

Jorabagan Jorasanko Barabazar Kalutola

Immigrants Ward as % of Ward Nos. Population 65.9 41.5 14. 65.1 15. 54.0 16. 56.8 17. 79.3 50.2 96.4 81.7

18. 19. 20. 21.

Names of Wards

Immigrants as % of Ward Population

Taltola Colinga Park Street Victoria Terrace (Bamun Bustee) Hastings Entally Beniapukur Ballygunge & Tollygunge Bhawanipore Alipore Ekbalpore Watgunge

60.5 70.9 82.2 86.7

9. Muchipara 78.8 22. 10. Bow Bazar 67.9 23. 11. Paddapukur 58.2 24. 12. Waterloo Street 91.0 25. 13. Fenwick Bazar 83.2 Source: Census of India, 1921, Vol. VI, City of Calcutta, Part I, Calcutta, 1923.

62.8 46.7 46.4 56.6 76.0 88.8 60.6 69.0

57

L

Y

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

H Shampukur

G O

Kumartuli Bartola Jorabagan

O

Jorasanko

H

Sukea St

Barabazar Kalutola

Muchipara

Waterloo St Bow Bazar

Paddapukur

R

Fenwick Bazar Taltola

R

E

I

V

Entally

Park St Colinga

Hastings

Beniapukur Watgunge

Victoria Terrace Bhawanipore

Ekbalpore Alipore

High

Medium

Ballygunge & Tollygunge

Medium/Low

Low

Map 12: Share of immigrants in the total population of wards in Calcutta, 1921. As for the source of immigration, ‘the great majority of immigrants come from Bengal outside Calcutta’.

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Coming back to the 1921 census figures on immigration, and relating these to the linguistic and religious concentrations, we find interesting results. For example, it is observed that the wards with significantly higher share of immigrants to the total population are also those with a highly mixed composition of both religious and linguistic groups. Table 21 illustrates this point.

X Convergence of Religious and Linguistic Communities: Representative Cosmopolitan Neighbourhoods Unfortunately, for the period of the present analysis, ward-wise figures, when available, have not been consistent for religious and linguistic groups, as figures for most of the religious groups were more easily available compared to linguistic groups. Thus, the following table is representative, and aims to provide a broader overview. Table 21: Representative cosmopolitan neighbourhoods Wards/ Localities

Religious Groups

Linguistic Groups

Other Communities

Kalutola

Muslim, Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, Christian, Jain, Jew, Zoroastrian, Sikh

Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Chinese, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Marwari, Oriya, Tamil

Armenian, Anglo-Indian

Barabazar

Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Jew, Zoroastrian

Hindi, Bengali, English* Marwari, Gujarati, Punjabi

Bowbazar

Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Jew, Zoroastrian

Hindi, Bengali, English*, Chinese,

Armenian, Anglo-Indian

Colinga

Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Jew

English, Bengali, Hindi*

Armenian, Anglo-Indian

Park Street

Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Jew

English, Bengali, Hindi*

Armenian, Anglo-Indian

Bamun Bustee

Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain

English, Bengali, Hindi*

Armenian, Anglo-Indian

Source: Compiled from the Census of Calcutta volumes, 1901–1931, and other secondary sources * Ward-wise figures for other languages not available. Note: The groupings do not refer to any particular year, but illustrate an average for the period.

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Wards in central Calcutta have witnessed the immigration of several communities from the pre-colonial period. The nomenclature of streets, localities, markets/bazaars, the presence of institutions of religion and others, bear evidence to these developments, as illustrated in the map of central Calcutta (Map 1) published in late nineteenth century.

XI Occupational Groupings by Place of Birth A fact that has been stressed again and again is that occupational considerations or economic compulsions primarily direct migrant communities to choose their places of residence. Nirmal Kumar Bose has observed the fact that ‘ethnic groups tend to cluster together in their own quarters’ and that ‘each ethnic group tends to pursue a particular range of occupations’.61 Certain immigrant communities have normally been associated with certain occupations, while others have diversified into different economic pursuits. A representative table for the year 1921 illustrates the occupational distribution of the major immigrant communities from neighbouring provinces. Table 22: Occupational distribution of immigrants from other parts of India to Calcutta, 1921 (number per 1,000 workers) Sources of Migration / Birthplace Number per Midna- Hooghly Dacca Patna, Gaya, Cuttack Azamgarh Bikanir 1,000 pore Sahabad, & Benares, & Workers Monghyr, Balasore Gazipur & Jaipur who are: Darbhanga, in Jaunpur in Saran & Orissa in Rajputana Muzaffarpur United in Bihar Provinces Traders 116 221 208 109 66 134 412 Clerks 47 140 109 24 23 24 168 Government 12 28 34 26 10 29 4 Services Domestic 191 117 160 107 208 82 141 Servants Workers in Mills & 74 50 23 97 115 199 7 Factories Day Labourers & 98 56 89 230 258 147 14 Coolies Workers in Docks & 12 96 54 17 32 16 0 Ships

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Calcutta Mosaic

Sources of Migration / Birthplace Number per Midna- Hooghly Dacca Patna, Gaya, Cuttack Azamgarh Bikanir 1,000 pore Sahabad, & Benares, & Workers Monghyr, Balasore Gazipur & Jaipur who are: Darbhanga, in Jaunpur in Saran & Orissa in Rajputana Muzaffarpur United in Bihar Provinces Carters 4 10 8 56 2 48 2 Darwans 2 1 1 16 4 33 7 Shoemakers 1 5 1 59 1 6 3 Washermen 5 6 3 10 19 16 1 Milkmen 5 7 2 5 7 4 2 Barbers 10 6 2 10 4 5 4 Priests 7 9 1 5 8 4 35 Beggars 18 9 4 8 6 9 7 Prostitutes 70 38 10 2 9 4 6 Others 328 291 350 219 189 240 187 Total 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 Source: Census of India, 1921, Vol. VI, City of Calcutta, Part I, Calcutta, 1923.

The Table is accompanied by interesting observations: ‘The diversity of occupations plied by the immigrants from all directions is remarkable indeed’, but ‘that there are traders from all the localities mentioned in the table will surprise no one’.62 Certain tendencies of immigrants from particular localities to take particular pursuits are noticeable. The community, which keeps to itself most noticeably, is the Marwari community. The clerks among them are almost all trader clerks. Another 141 per mille are the domestic servants they brought with them from their own country and 35 are their priests, so that only one in four of them is left to take up other occupations. The report also provides an explanation for the figures of ‘Others’ in the last row, as being ‘made up by landlords and others living on their income, professional men, a few who are mainly agriculturists but had come to Calcutta in some employment subsidiary to their regular one, and the like...’63 One could take the figures for 1921 as being almost representative for the period that preceded it, as well as the one that followed, as we understand from other related evidences. There were many other immigrant communities that made a living from the city. Some took up permanent residence, while others were semi-permanent. Some brought their families along, while for many others, the families were left behind in the villages. We present, in the following table, a broad classification of communities on the basis of occupations, and sources of immigration. This is not a conclusive table, but is aimed to highlight the primary occupations with which the communities have been identified.

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61

Table 23: Sources of immigration and areas of concentration by broad occupational groups Occupation

Immigrant Communities

Areas of Concentration

Unskilled Labourers, Day Labourers

Selected regions of Bihar, United Provinces/Uttar Pradesh, Orissa

Commercial areas such as Barabazar and other commercial wards in Central Calcutta

Carters

Bihar, United Provinces

Commercial areas such as Barabazar

Workers in Mills and Factories

Bihar, United Provinces

Fringe wards in the Northeast, East, Southwest

Artisans

Chinese

Central and East Calcutta

Transport

Sikhs/Pubjabis

Bara Bazaar, followed by Bhawanipore, etc.

Traders

Armenians, Greeks, Portuguese, Jews, Bengalis, Marwaris/Rajasthanis, Gujratis, Pubjabis, Sindhis, Deccans

Barabazar and adjoining areas such as Kalotola. Some Marwari families shifted to Alipore & other areas Pubjabis and Gujaratis spread to the southern wards

Bureaucratic/ Professional

Europeans, various Eurasian communities including Anglo-Indians, Bengalis, South Indians

Around the present B B D Bag (former Dalhousie Square), Chowringhee, Park Street for Europeans, and the intermediate town along Bowbazar Street, for other communities

Railways, Dock

Anglo-Indians, Labourers from Bihar & United Provinces

Anglo-Indians were concentrated in the mixed wards of central Calcutta. Labourers generally resided near places of work.

Source: Compiled from census and other secondary sources on the ethnic communities in Calcutta.

XII Conclusions Mapping the spaces of minorities through the last century, one can arrive at certain broad generalizations. Cities have always been focal points of in-migration of varied communities. This is all the more applicable for colonial cities like Calcutta, which attracted migrants through its vast range of occupational possibilities, both traditional and those that evolved with colonialism. Noteworthy among these were activities connected with trade, administration, the military, port, labour in the emerging factories, education, health and the legal professions, and numerous other related occupational groups. The city space has also been inclusive of the large volume of migrants that gradually made it their home. Calcutta, as we know, accommodated a large magnitude of the displaced population from erstwhile East Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947, and this changed markedly its spatial organization – both functional and social.

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Calcutta Mosaic

Minorities in the present essay constitute immigrants – from other parts of Bengal, other states of India, as well as from beyond the country – people who have made the city their home since the pre-colonial days. These ethnic communities, both religious and linguistic minorities, have made the city –where the majority religion is Hindu and the principal language Bengali –their home, through generations. Two broad representative categories, though not always mutually exclusive, have been focused upon: a) single minorities in concentrated settlements; b) mixed areas of different minority communities. Examples of the former are the concentrations of Confucians, Armenians and Jews; for the latter, Kalutola, Bara Bazaar and Bow Bazaar, among the densely settled commercial wards in central Calcutta. The map of Calcutta, in the words of Nirmal Kumar Bose, ‘shows a highly differentiated texture’. The cosmopolitan character of Calcutta’s population is emphasized by the fact that no less than 57 different languages have been returned as the mother tongue by its inhabitants, as reported in the 1911 census. Within this framework, wards that are primarily Bengalispeaking or chiefly inhabited by Hindus, the language and religion of the majority population respectively, have more or less retained this character through the period. This is probably applicable also to those wards that have illustrated a dominance of Hindi-speaking as well as Muslim groups – the two numerically dominant minority groups in the city throughout our period of study. That occupational considerations direct a community to inhabit certain localities vis-à-vis others is broadly borne out by studies, especially those made on individual communities. ‘Naturally there is a considerable amount of overlap, but this does not obscure the fact that each ethnic group tends to pursue a particular range of occupations.’ This statement made by Bose has been found to be generally applicable to most communities, for example the Chinese, Marwaris and Armenians. There are, nevertheless, exceptions. The shifts in occupations of the Sikhs, with associated shifts in the spatial organization of this growing community, is a representative case. Although he is of the opinion that people of different ethnic groups ‘cling as closely as possible to the occupation with which his ethnic group is identified’, and ‘reliance on earlier modes of group identification reinforces and perpetuates differences between ethnic groups’,64 it is difficult to explain the occupational mobility, or mix of ethnic identities at work in factories, i.e. labour in industries, in the growing informal sector of today, for example, rickshaw pullers or construction workers. In general, the concentration of linguistic and religious groups have not undergone significant transformations. Slight changes, however, have been

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63

witnessed in the case of selected communities through the decades, but usually communities show a tendency to remain concentrated in the same or neighbouring areas with members of the same group. Many neighbourhoods are still associated with particular ethnic groups. New nodes of concentration have appeared in different places. Areas of mixed concentration of different groups – both religious and linguistic, have developed, and remained concentrated spatially as well as temporally, driven perhaps by reasons economic, social or political. Certain major groups have displayed the tendency to remain as far as possible in their respective concentrations. Further segregation has occurred within some, such as the Confucians. It has been difficult, in the case of a few religious groups, to get a breakdown of the varied linguistic communities that they have been part of. For example, Christians include Europeans, AngloIndians, Indian-Christians, Chinese, etc. An interesting example of this cross-analysis of religious and linguistic composition would be the Chinese community – composed of Confucians, Buddhists and Christians. For an idea of the broader demographic context of the city, the following facts may be useful: 1. The city of Calcutta has been witnessing stagnation or decline in many of its wards in terms of population growth, since the last few decades. Such decline has been observed primarily in the core wards of the city, i.e., the municipal limits of the 100-ward city. The fringe wards (the 41 wards added to the city post 1981) have however been witnessing high growth. We can either assume that migration into the city has declined, or surmise that a large section of population from the core city has shifted out. Interestingly, this corresponds to an observation made by Nirmal Kumar Bose more than four decades ago, when he wrote that: the impression is widely held that Calcutta is the center of population ‘implosion’, that the city is being engulfed by a tide of in-migration from the country around it. Although some such process can be said to have contributed to the city’s growth in the past, this is not the case today.

Bose quotes Asok Mitra, the then Registrar General of India. It seems incredible that, while West Bengal’s population grew by 33 percent in the last decade, Calcutta’s should have grown by only 8 percent [...] The truth of the matter is indeed a paradox [...] Calcutta is not growing fast enough.65

2. This fact could lead to various assumptions. It could be that the city no longer generates enough economic opportunities to attract migrants as it did earlier, and thereby the flow of migrants has either diminished or

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stopped. It could also be that the city can no longer sustain certain economic pursuits, and this has led to out-migration. 3. Could we draw some sort of a correlation between such demographic transformations and the spatial organization/reorganization of the ethnic composition of the city? It would be difficult to make any conclusive statement since the Census has discontinued the publication of data on ethnic groups at the level of the municipal wards. Moreover, any detailed field-based study on ethnic minorities post 1964 has been conspicuous by its absence. 4. In spite of the closure of several industries that had given employment to a large number of primarily migrant communities, mainly from neighbouring states, many of whom constituted the bulk of the immigrant communities, there is a hunch that most of these people have stayed back in squatter settlements on the city’s fringes, where a majority have taken up informal activities, while others have remained unemployed. The concentration of these communities, as found from figures available for an earlier period, corresponds roughly with the concentration of slums and squatter settlements today, mainly on the outskirts of the city. 5. City development/redevelopment policies since the nineties have been reconceiving the organization of the city space of Calcutta. New uses and functions are replacing the old, resulting often in marked displacement of communities. One could term this an exclusionist agenda – a dominant phenomenon that metropolitan cities in India are passing through today. Calcutta may have been a late beginner in this race for development, but it is fast catching up.

NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

Ward-names in the tables have been spelt as in the original sources, i.e. the Census. Ward-names in the rest of the text has been altered to standardize with the rest of the book. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, Calcutta 1964: A Social Survey, Lalvani Publishing House, Bombay, 1968. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’, Scientific American, September 1965. Noteworthy among these is Siddiqui, M K A, ed., Aspects of Society and Culture in Calcutta, Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India, Calcutta, July 1982. Biswas, Arabinda, Chatterjee, Partha and Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, ‘The Ethnic Composition of Calcutta and the Residential Pattern of Minorities’, Geographical Review of India, Vol. 38, No. 2, June 1976.

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

6

7

8

9 10

11

12

13 14 15

16

17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

Biswas, Arabinda, Chatterjee, Partha and Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, op. cit, p. 140. Sinha, Pradip, Calcutta in Urban History, Firma K L M Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta, 1978. The book contains a number of valuable appendices on a few minority communities such as the Armenians, the Muslims and the Eurasians. Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ed., Calcutta: The Living City, The Present and Future, Vol. I and II, Oxford University Press, 1995. Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 8 Noteworthy amongst these are two: Bose, Nirmal Kumar, op. cit., and Biswas, Arabinda, Chatterjee, Partha and Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, op. cit. Calcutta: Police Census, Report 17, in Samachar Darpan, 25 February 1837, as reproduced in Bandyopadhyay, B N, Sangbadpatre Sekaler Katha, Vol. 2, 1949, p. 652, published in Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 43. The present article is based primarily on figures computed from the Census of India volumes on Calcutta City for the respective decades, unless stated otherwise. These are: Census of India, 1991, Volume VII, Calcutta and Suburbs, Part IV, Report (Statistical), Calcutta; Census of India, 1911, Volume VI, City of Calcutta, Part II, Calcutta; Census of India, 1921, Volume IV, City of Calcutta, Part I, Calcutta; Census of India 1931, Volume VI, Parts I and II, Calcutta; Census of India, 1941, Volume IV, Bengal, Tables, Delhi; Census of India, 1961, West bengal, District Census handbook, Calcutta, Volume II, Calcutta; Census of India, 1991, Series 26, West Bengal, District Census Handbook, Part XII B, Town Directory and Primary Census Abstract, Calcutta District, Calcutta. Census of India 2001, Series 20, West Bengal, Provisional Population Totals, Paper 2 of 2001, Delhi. For location of the Census Wards please refer to maps in Appendix I for 1901-31 and Appendix II for 1961. Census of India, Calcutta, 1911. This survey was conducted on a sample of over twenty thousand households. ‘A Peddling Community - The Armenians’, Appendix VII, in Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 182. ‘Calcutta in the Olden Time – Its Localities’, in Long, Reverend James, Calcutta and its Neighbourhoods: History of People and Localities from 1690 to 1857, (Edited with an Introduction and Bio-bibliographical Notes by Sankar Sengupta), Indian Publications, Calcutta, 1974, p. 202. Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 40. Gupta, Bunny and Chaliha, Jaya, ‘Barabazar’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ed., op.cit., Vol. II, p. 114. Ray, A K, A Short History of Calcutta, 1901, pp. 196, 199. Ibid., p. 206. Census of India, Calcutta, 1921, p. 74. Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 41. Ibid. Das, Soumitra, on Calcutta’s vanishing Jewish community, ‘Then there were 39’, The Telegraph, Peoples and Places, 8 December 2006, p. 4. Ibid. Ibid.

65

66

Calcutta Mosaic

27

Parsis and Zoroastrians have been used interchangeably. In most of the censuses, the community is shown as the religious group called Zoroastrians. Madan, Cyrus J, ‘The Parsis of Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., p. 62. Ibid., p. 63. Hardgrove, Anne, Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004, p. 53. Madan, Cyrus J, op. cit., p. 62. Sircar, Jawhar, ‘The Chinese in Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., p. 64. Ibid., p. 65. Census of India, Calcutta, 1901, p. 25. Ali, Hasan, ‘The Chinese in Calcutta: A Study of a Racial Minority’, in Ibid., pp. 86–7. Ibid, p. 87. Ibid., p. 86. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’, op. cit., 1965, pp.101–02. Ibid., p. 99. Biswas et al, ‘The Ethnic Composition of Calcutta and the Residential Pattern of Minorities’, op.cit., p. 143. Biswas, Arabinda, Chatterjee, Partha, and Chaube, Shibani Kinkar, op. cit., pp.145–6. Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 44. Lahiri, Kuntala, ‘The Anglo-Indians of Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit. p. 67. Ibid., p. 67. Ibid., p. 67. Sinha, Pradip, op. cit., p. 51. Lahiri, Kuntala, op. cit., p. 68. Hardgrove, Anne, op. cit., p. 9. Ibid., pp. 50, 52. Ibid., pp. 59–60. This and the quotes in the next paragraph have been taken from Mitra, Sukumar, and Prasad, Amita, ‘The Marwaris of Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., pp. 111, 112. Banerjee, Himadri, ‘Home Away From Home: Punjabi-Sikhs in Eastern India’, a chapter in a forthcoming book on Sikhs. For the section on the Sikh community, I have relied considerably on this study. Ibid. Sinha, Pradip, ‘Some Calcutta Neighbourhoods - Past and Present’, in Calcutta in Urban History, op. cit., p. 244. Banerjee, Himadri, op. cit. Ibid. In some censuses, figures for Hindi and Urdu speakers have been amalgamated, for example in 1911. Census of India, Calcutta, 1931.

28

29 30

31 32

33 34 35

36 37 38

39 40

41

42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52

53 54

55 56 57

58

Mapping the Spaces of Minorities

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

67

I am grateful to Professor Himadri Banerjee for this information. Census, Immigration, Chapter X, 1901, p. 176. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’, op. cit., 1965, p.102. Census of India, 1921, City of Calcutta, 26. Ibid., p. 26. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’, op. cit., 1965, p.102. Ibid., p. 92.

E

R

Cossipore Satpukur

32

V

31 Belgachia

I

Shampukur Kumartuli

R

2

30

1

Bartala

Jorabagan 3 Maniktala 5 Jorasanko 6 Sukea’s St 29 Burra Bazar 4 7 Kalutola Muchipara 8

Y L

Waterloo St 9 12 Bow Bazar Paddapukur 10

Fenwick Bazar

13 Taltala

H H O

O

14

G

28

9

Tengra Kalinga Beniapukur 16 15 18 20 Baman Bustee 17 Bhawanipur

25 Ekbalpore

24

Intally

Beliaghata

Park St

Watganj & Garden Reach Hastings

26

11

Alipore

23

Ballygunge

21

22

Tollygunge

27

Appendix 1: Ward Map of Calcutta, 1931 (Since ward numbers and names have remained almost unchanged except for additions from 1901, this could be taken as a Reference Map).

2

3

4

E

R

1

V I

6 8

R 17

20

12 13 14

24

70 71 67

72

Tolly’s Nala

73

51

66

se R oad

33

. Bo

35

Ch

47 48

Ach ar

53

16

32

dish

ly S tree t 50

49

57

54

55

58

A. J. Ch. Bose Road

74

75

ngu

aga

ad ringh Chow

O

52

t

45 46

. Ga

ee Ro

G O

tree

42

B.B

H H

25 21 22 26 27 29 23 37 40 41 43 Dha 44 rma tala 39 S

38

15

28

ya J

Y L

10

9

11

18

19

5

7

69

59

60

62

61

68

56

76

64 63

65

77 78

79 80

Appendix 2: Ward Map of Calcutta, 1961.

36

Karekin II offering his message of blessing to the Armenian community of Calcutta during the reception hosted in honor of His Holiness by the Church Committee during His visit to Calcutta in February 2007. Photograph Courtesy: Mr Vachegan Tadevosian, Yerevan.

Chapter 2 THE ARMENIANS OF CALCUTTA Susmita Bhattacharya Calcutta has, since its origin and at different points in time, always allured people. Because of its strategic, geographic and commercial position, along with various historical, economic and political reasons, people from not only numerous corners of the country and the neighbouring states, but also from far off places, have come to the city. Alongside internal migration, there has always been a kaleidoscopic inflow of people from distant lands. Particularly since its emergence as the capital of British India and as the centre for trade of entire South-East Asia and China, a deluge of international immigrants like Dutch, French, Jews, Chinese and Armenians have given the city its cosmopolitan character. Hence, the city has always portrayed itself as a mosaic of a large number of diverse ethnic groups, who had set their foot on this land of opportunities in search of fate and fortune, having different cultures, languages and religions. The existence of the Armenian community in Calcutta came into the limelight recently when His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, as a part of His 10-days (23 February–4 March 2007) Pontifical Visit to India, came down from Etchmiadzin in Armenia1 to meet and bless the Indian–Armenian diaspora of the city. This was after more than 40 years since His Holiness Vazgen I, the Catholicos from 1955–1994, visited the country in 1963, when the foundation stone of the present building of the Armenian College was laid on 9 December of that year. The residents of Calcutta are probably the only Indians who are familiar with the Armenians since this is where they still survive. Though the number of members of the Armenian community has dwindled, they still survive with a distinct identity in Calcutta. At present, it is the only city left in the country where the community still has a significant presence and where the important institutions like Holy Church of Nazareth, St Gregory’s Chapel, Homes, Armenian Club and Armenian Sports Club,

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Calcutta Mosaic

Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy and Davidian Girls’ School, are present. These, serving as important focal points for the Armenian community, are still functioning. The Armenians meet and interact with each other in these institutions, which are the most visible and permanent identifiers of the presence of an Armenian diaspora in the city. They also appear to be traditional landmarks of Armenian communities elsewhere in the world. It was not before the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Armenian permanent settlements began to emerge in various places of India, especially in the coastal towns. By the seventeenth century, immigration of Armenians further increased from Turkey and Iran and they migrated to the already-formed Armenian colonies of Europe and Asia, one branch among them coming to India too. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Armenians gradually settled in Agra, Delhi, Madras, Bombay, Saidabad, Narwar, Lucknow and Gwalior, and in Chinsurah, Chandannagar and Calcutta in Bengal.

Coming to Calcutta A vast majority of the first Armenian settlers in Calcutta were from Shiraz and New Julfa in Persia, as evidenced from the inscriptions on the tombstones at various graves in the city’s churchyards. It is difficult to ascertain exactly when the Armenians started coming to Calcutta and whether there was any permanent Armenian colony before the formation of the English settlement under Job Charnock. But the striking discovery by an eminent Armenian historian–scholar Mr Mesrovb Jacob Seth, in 1884, of an inscription on an epitaph of Rezabeebeh, the wife of the late charitable Sookias, in the churchyard of St Nazareth bearing the year 1630, is glaring evidence of the fact that the Armenians did set their foot in this corner of India and settled here more than 60 years before the advent of the English in 1690 or perhaps around the end of the sixteenth century. Some sources suggest that the Sookias probably resided at Sutanuti or Howrah, where the Armenians had a garden that existed throughout the eighteenth century and which might have been there even earlier.2 Thus, the Armenians were the first among the foreign immigrants to settle in Calcutta, and the history of the prosperity and decline of this community in the city is five hundred years old. The archival documents, church records, manuscripts and the existence of cemeteries with tombstone inscriptions prove that even during the sixteenth century there were Armenians in areas which formed the city of Calcutta in the following years. The end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries can be regarded as the period when the process of

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formation and development of the Armenian colony began. With the development of maritime trade, the importance of Calcutta considerably increased due to its port, and the Armenians from other settlements shifted to the city. This was following the signing of the agreement in the year 1688 between Khojah Phanoos Kalantar, the leader and representative of the Armenian merchants in India, and the Company of Merchants, London, trading in East Indies. According to Rev. James Long, in 1690, the Armenians and Portuguese accepted the invitation of the Governor Charnock to settle here. The first Armenian immigrants primarily came for trade and commerce, being pioneers in Central Asian trade, which had then a great future,3 and gradually made the city their home. Then came a period when the physical existence of the Armenian nation was threatened and thousands of Armenians had to leave their motherland in search of a peaceful corner. The country of the holy Ganga became their second homeland. The last large-scale influx was after the genocide of the Armenians in Turkey in 1915, when millions of Armenians were killed. During this period, almost two thousand Armenians fled to India and particularly to Calcutta. The Armenian community in the city was not able to cope with such a huge number of refugees. The Homes which provided them with temporary shelter were full and, after an interval, many of these refugees continued their eastward journey to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. As historical documents suggest, the genesis of Calcutta and later on the growth of a flourishing Armenian colony in the city are inseparably associated with an Armenian named Khojah4 Israel Sarhad, a merchant– diplomat, also regarded as the political stepping stone for the British in India. ‘If Job Charnock be the founder of Calcutta, the author of its privileges and early security is the great Armenian merchant Khojah Israel Sarhad.’5 It was through him that the British rule took its root and gained firm ground in the country. On the one hand, he played a key role in facilitating the East India Company in July 1698 to acquire letters-patent from Azim-ush-Shan for the modest sum of Rs 16,000, allowing them to purchase, from the existing holders, the right of renting three villages – Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata. On the other hand, he should be regarded as the author of the future prosperous Armenian community in Calcutta. In 1713, Khojah Sarhad once again provided his service in response to the request by the British in negotiating for an English embassy to the Court of Emperor Farrukhsiyar at Delhi. And finally, it was Khojah Sarhad who, in 1715, as a member of the Embassy at Delhi, was appointed the vakil of the Company’s mission under John Surman to the Court of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Farrukhsiyar. Owing to the efficient

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good offices of Khojah Sarhad, as the pleader and interpreter with the Emperor on behalf of the Company, the English succeeded in obtaining the historical Grand Imperial Farman of 1717 that granted extraordinary privileges to the Company, which in fact, put the Company at a decisive advantage vis-à-vis their French and Dutch rivals. Being one of the first trading communities of Calcutta, the Armenians played a significant role in Bengal’s trade and commerce in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Calcutta still bears evidences of the prosperity of this vibrant community that once settled here. Certain places named after the Armenians, such as Armanitola meaning ‘the habitat of the Armenians, Armanipara meaning ‘the neighbourhood of the Armenians’, or a block close to Free School Street, Armenian Street and Armani Ghat on the banks of the river Ganges, announce the once eventful presence of this community and the active role played by them in the city. The name, the Armenian Ghat, may perhaps be explained by the fact that it was constructed in 1734 by Manvel Hazaar Maliyan, also known as Huzoorimal, to facilitate the shipment of goods from foreign shores. Huzoorimal had earned a reputation for numerous acts of public beneficence – a tank at Baitakkhana, the steeple of Armenian Church, and a ghat near the Kali temple at Kalighat were built by him. From 1854–74, the Calcutta station6 and Ticket Reservation Room of Eastern Railways were situated in the Armenian Ghat. Passengers bought tickets from here and then took the launch or steamer of the Railways that used to ply between the Ghat and Howrah. The passengers would board the train from the platform at Howrah. This system was stopped after the construction of the Howrah Bridge. Horse-pulled trams also used to ply from Sealdah to the Armenian Ghat regularly. At present, the Armenian Ghat has been transformed into a storehouse of the Port Commission.

Structure of the Community It is difficult to provide any specific figure for the Armenian population in India as well as in Calcutta. In fact, the map of the Armenian colonies in India witnessed great changes in the nineteenth century, and the only Armenian colony which could maintain its existence was the Armenian colony of Calcutta. Rev. James Long writes that in the first half of the nineteenth century the population of Calcutta was 229,714 of which British were 3,138 and Armenians 636.7 According to the Armenian magazine Arev, the Armenian population of Calcutta at the end of the nineteenth century totalled 800–1,000. Rev. Aramais Mirzaian in his book A Short Record of Armenian Churches in India and Far East, published in Calcutta in

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1958, estimated the number of permanent Armenians residents in India at the end of the nineteenth century to be around 8,000–20,000. The French author Doloriere gave the number as 25,000 whereas Alishan puts it at 5,000 and Shahnazaryan at 1,500. Other sources suggest that till the nineteenth century, the number of Indian Armenians were not less than 10,000, without counting those who were coming temporarily for trade or other works to India and then going back. In the second decade of the twentieth century, because of the influx of refugees from Western Armenia, the number of Armenians increased considerably. This is what an older and active member of the Calcutta Armenian community, the octogenarian Mr Charlie Sarkies, the Superintendent of Sir Catchick Paul Chater Home, Calcutta, has to say, I arrived here in December 1934. Then there were at least 3,600 Armenians. Most of them were into coal mining, jute trade and construction. After 1947, they left for the USA, the UK and Australia as they thought things would change for the worse…

The first Armenian colonies in Calcutta were not very big. Initially there were only a few people, a few families, whom their kinsmen and compatriots began to join in course of time. As a mercantile community, the Armenians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were deeply engrossed in commercial pursuits8 and ‘not men of letters’. They were primarily merchants and traders but some worked in Indian state and military services as well. With time, the social structure changed. A purely trading and commercial community at the beginning, they produced a number of noted scholars, doctors, lawyers, architects, military personnel, armourers, philanthropists, wealthy landlords, merchants, ship-owners, jewellers, colliery proprietors, racehorse owners over the years and of course, people in railway, seaport and governmental services. It would be wrong to assume that all Armenians were wealthy traders. There were both affluent and economically weak members in the community. In fact, the Armenian colonies were mostly constituted of middle class people like artisans, caravan guides, daily workers, service people and petty traders. But the remarkable point was that, as a religious and community-loving race, the wealthy Armenians always considered it their duty to help the needy people of their community and donated funds and property to the churches for providing relief and education to their less fortunate compatriots. They contributed for the well-being of the weaker section and for the purpose of charity and philanthropic activities. The Armenian community of Calcutta might be divided into three classes in a chronological order. First, there were those whose ancestors had settled

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in Calcutta during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were called ‘Calcutta Armenians’, most of whom had the benefits of English education. Amongst them were doctors, solicitors, foreign consuls, barristers, and share and stockbrokers. Then there were a fairly large number of those who came from Julfa and settled in the city from the last quarter of the nineteenth to the first quarter of the twentieth century. They were engaged mostly in trade and commerce and were known as ‘Julfa Armenians’. Afterwards, during the early part of the twentieth century came those emigrants from the Armenian villages of Charmahal in Persia, who were an industrious and plodding lot, clannish and ambitious. They were called ‘Charmahalis’.9 In Calcutta, the Armenians are usually grouped with Anglo-Indians because of their fair complexion, their European way of dressing and their names. Armenian surnames usually had the ending ‘ian’ or ‘yan’. Dropping this ending, they shortened or altered their surnames, and so Khojamalian became Khojamall, Grigoryan became Gregory, Abgaryan became Apcar, Haroutunyan became Arrathoon and so on. The first names of the men are often European in form as Chater, Edgar, Gregory, Jordan, Martin and Stephens and women are given European names like Mary, Jerry, Alice, Suzan, Izabel, Annie and Sonia. Both men and women use European versions of their first names, so that Haroutune becomes Harry, Krikor – Gregory, or even translations of their names such as Hasmik – Jasmine, Tagouhi – Queenie. It is worth mentioning that Indian surnames as Seth, Vardhan (Vardon), Kochhar, Narayan, Nair and Gauhar have an Armenian origin, which allows for the assumption that the ancestors of these families were Armenians.

Trade and Economic Activities The Armenians were the pioneers of foreign trade in India. Situated on the crossroads of caravan routes between the East and West, Armenia became the focal point of transit trade, and the Armenians from time immemorial played an active role in trading activities between the Western countries, India and China. They carried on trade in precious stones, gems, silks, fine muslins, jutes, numerous kinds of medicinal herbs, spices and even gold, silver, copper, tin from India to Europe, and imported to India coloured leather, various dyes, cotton and iron by the overland route through Persia, Bactria (Afghanistan), Tibet, Armenia and Russia via Trabezund. From the historical past they had always been able to obtain various commercial, social and religious privileges from the Armenian, Russian, Persian, Mughal and a number of Indian rulers, and enjoyed their protection and patronage, which helped in expanding their sphere

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of commercial activities efficiently through a vast land. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Armenians and Indians carried on their trade jointly in Russia and particularly in Astrakhan. In India, the Armenians achieved equal success in the sphere of trade and commerce during the Hindu, Mughal and British periods. It is a wellknown fact that it was Akbar who induced them to come and settle in his dominions instead of being sojourners in the country. Well aware of their intelligence and integrity in commercial matters, he wanted to improve the trade of the country through their agency. It may be mentioned that the Armenians were the most favoured subjects at the Delhi Courts of that time and had been held in high esteem by the Mughal Emperors from the time of Akbar for their loyalty and integrity. The English too were not slow in recognizing the worth of the Armenians in Bengal and eagerly sought their friendship for the furtherance of their cause in the country. As a result, the Armenians rapidly flourished in trade during this period. Moreover, along with the other European maritime companies, the British were keen to enlist the partnership of the Armenian merchants locally. This was because of the favourable position that the Armenians enjoyed in the Mughal courts and their close association with the ruling classes, their flair in Persian and other local languages, their business skill, integrity, capital, thorough knowledge about the different races that inhabited India, as well as their adaptable ways. The British used to engage Armenian vakils to represent them and their cause in the Mughal Court. Thus, the Armenian presence was a significant and almost customary feature in Bengal trade and politics. Both the development and decline of the trading Armenian community of Calcutta is inalienably connected with the trade policy of the British East India Company. The 1688 Agreement was crucial in this context. The English merchants, well aware of the economic and political influence enjoyed by the Armenian traders among the Indian rulers, adopted a policy of friendship towards them. At the same time though, they realized with grave concern the potential of this community, held in high esteem by the Indians, to challenge them in the future. Therefore, initially they pursued a policy of compromise and agreement to win over the Armenians. With this end in view, on 22 June 1688 an agreement was concluded between Khojah Phanoos Kalantar, the leader of the Armenian merchants in India and the Company of London merchants trading in the East Indies, which granted certain important rights and privileges to the Armenian traders. But once they had secured a strong footing in India, the British, backed by their strong government, started ousting their Armenian allies from the trade markets. The Armenian merchants, not united and using ancestral

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trade methods, gradually lost their significant role in Indian trade. Those among them who were individual traders or trading through small companies found it impossible to seriously oppose the East India Company, which used its army and fleet to achieve its goals. The Company’s commercial and economic operations would often result in bloody expeditions and onslaughts. The middle order Armenian merchants, artisans and other related sections of the Armenian population succumbed to the harsh economic plight, and the condition of almost all sections of the Calcutta Armenian population deteriorated sharply during these years. As a result of the conflict among the European powers then present in India, Chinsurah and Chandannagar lost their commercial supremacy by the nineteenth century. Most of the Armenians from these settlements then moved to Calcutta, transferring their businesses and residences to the city. After losing ground in traditional trade to the British, many Armenians started purchasing lands and established real estate businesses. They contributed to the development of North Calcutta and encouraged their contacts, the Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Greek and Portuguese merchants in other parts of the country, to come and settle here and establish their businesses. Gradually, as the area became crowded, the Armenians shifted to Central and South Calcutta. During this period they set a high standard for private residences, hotels, office premises, residential mansions, boarding and guest houses and built hundreds of small and big houses, many of which remain today as beautiful specimens of period architecture. They remained prominent builders in the early twentieth century till the 1930s, and almost the whole of the area known as Queen’s Park and Sunny Park, Ballygunge, in South Calcutta was owned by them. Renowned architects among the Armenians include T M Thaddeus, who built Park Mansions and Johannes Galstaun who built Queen’s (earlier Galstaun) Mansions, Harrington Mansions and Galstaun Park, his own palatial residence and the palace of the Nizam of Hyderabad. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Johannes Galstaun developed and beautified Central and South Calcutta by building 350 houses. This wealthy merchant donated Rs 25,000 to the Victoria Memorial Building Fund. Then after winning the Prince of Wales Cup at the Calcutta races in 1921, he presented all the money (Rs 15,000) to the Prince for charity. There was also a big park named in his honour, Galstaun Park. During World War I, he placed this park at the disposal of the British military authorities, which converted it into a hospital for soldiers. For this charitable gesture he got the title of the Order of the British Empire. Afterwards, Galstaun Park was purchased by the Nizam of Hyderabad and renamed Saba Palace. It is now utilized by the Government of India for offices and other

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accommodations. The Grand Hotel, a landmark in the city and in the history of hotel business in India, was built by Arrathoon Stephen, as famous as Galstaun for his patronage of architecture and art. His family came to India in 1857 and Stephen, like many other Armenian boys and young men, was sent to Calcutta in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, almost penniless. He worked hard as a jeweller’s assistant in a shop situated on a property which he eventually purchased, plot by plot, and built into the Grand Hotel. Hotels seem to have held a special fascination for the Armenians. They were one of the first to build and own luxury-hotels in Calcutta and Darjeeling. The Grand Hotel in Calcutta and The Mount Everest in Darjeeling, now known as Oberoi Grand and Oberoi Everest, were both owned by Arrathoon Stephen. The proprietors of the hotels Astoria, Astor, Carlton, Lytton, Russell, Kenilworth and New Kenilworth were also Armenians.10 Even today, the hotel Fairlawn in the city is run by an Armenian lady Violet Smith whose parents, on coming to India in 1933 via Ispahan and Pakistan, joined the large Armenian community here. Her mother, Rosie Sarkies, first purchased the Astoria Hotel and after two years, when the business was thriving, sold the Astoria to another Armenian for Rs 6,000 and bought Fairlawn. From this base she built a hospitality empire, which includes five hotels in Calcutta. Apart from the hotel business, the Armenians were engaged in jewellery, banking, machinery, automobile, engineering, furniture, shellac, indigo and other businesses. There were stockbrokers, bankers and owners of export–import firms among them. They engaged in engineering, civil services, railways, agriculture and various other professions also. Among these professions one can find a number of Armenians who made their mark as commanders, army officers, high ranking officials in the court, barristers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, real estate agents etc. Dr Marie Catchatoor, for example, was the first woman to be appointed by the Government of West Bengal as Presidency Surgeon. She organized the family planning work in the village Khareberia (YWCA) near Calcutta and was a member of YWCA Board of Management. She was also a member of the Mulvaney House Committee and medical adviser to inmates of that home. Dr Catchatoor has been the President of both the Bengal Medical Women Association and the Medical Women Association of India. She retired as superintendent of Lady Dufferin Hospital in Calcutta in the early 1980s.

Social Life The social life of the Calcutta Armenians centres around three areas – their churches, their schools and colleges and rugby. As Ashram Sookias,

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the President of the Old Armenians Club in existence since 1890, says, rugby, for the Armenians of Calcutta, is not just a game but a way of life. Mr Sookias started playing as wing forward in 1947 the year the Armenians, under the captaincy of his older brother Malcolm, won the Calcutta Cup for the first time. His playing career ended in 1980, after which he carried on as teacher and coach at the college, inculcating in his young students the passion for the game. The Sookias family’s association with the game and the club goes back to the turn of the century, with countless Sookias listed as players, coaches and managers of the club. The fact that rugby never died out in Calcutta is due to the Armenians who have nurtured the game carefully and passionately over more than a century. The fortunes of Armenian rugby followed the fate of the Armenian community and Armenian College in Calcutta. Players came and went, teams formed and disintegrated, trophies were won and lost. Yet, it is significant that after a brief gap, rugby has re-emerged as a popular game. The credit for this must go to Ashram Sookias and two ex-students of Armenian College, Emil Vartazarian, a former captain of the Old Armenians who coached the U-19 Indian team in its first ever international tournament last year, and Henrik Terchounian, one of the last great players to have emerged from the Armenian community, now a player–coach and development manager in Chennai who has taken up the job of training young players. There are, at present, three Armenian churches in Calcutta – the Holy Armenian Church of Nazareth or The Armenian Apostolic Church erected in 1724 at 1, Armenian Street; the St Gregory’s Chapel erected in 1906 situated on Lower Circular Road; and the Chapel of the Holy Trinity built in 1867, situated in Tangra. During the recent visit by His Holiness Supreme Catholicos of All Armenians on 27 February 2007, the Armenians from across West Bengal came to the Holy Church of Nazareth to participate in the Hrashapar service, greeting the entrance of the Pontiff into the Church. Besides being a place of worship, this church has been and continues to be an institution for the community, closely associated with the religious, charitable, educational and historical activities of the Armenians in the East. For the Armenian community of Calcutta the permanent days of gathering are – Christmas Day (6 January), Day of St John the Baptist (celebrated in January in St John Baptist’s Church in Chinsurah), Easter (in March or April), Day of the Battle of Vardanants (in March), Martyrs’ Day (24 April, in commemoration of victims of Genocide in 1915), Festival of Virgin Mary (in August) and Festival of Holy Cross (in mid-September). On these days Holy Mass is served in the Armenian Church, and after

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that a free lunch is organized for the whole community. The Church has helped in establishing an Armenian Trauma Care Centre and the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute for Cardiac Sciences in Mukundapur. The Apostolic Church too is an important symbol of Armenian ethnicity and its continuity. The Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy was, till 1980, an institution with a large number of pupils. The number of students peaked in 1961, 1962 and 1973, with 206, 204 and 179 students respectively. However, various reasons led to a decline in the number of students. One of the reasons was the revolution in Iran in 1979, as an aftermath of which the number of students from Iran declined, since strict regulations were imposed by the Islamic leadership, and the new Government of Iran did not allow even the already selected batches of Armenian children to leave for India. Though during the Iran–Iraq war a number of students from Iran were sent to India by their parents, they were taken back when the war ended. Another reason was that the parents, seeking better educational opportunities for their children, often sent them to developed countries. Till the 1970s the standard of the Armenian College was very high. Then many of the highly qualified teachers left India, and many elderly people died, leaving nobody to run the College properly. In 1991, there were only 38 students, almost all of them being Iranian nationals, which posed a big concern for the Armenian community in general and the Church committee in particular. After the disastrous earthquake in Soviet Armenia on 7 December 1988, the Armenian Church Committee of Calcutta, while sending financial help to the Earthquake Fund, suggested that the Government of Armenia send a batch of orphan children to study in the Armenian College of Calcutta, since many children had lost their parents during the earthquake. The then Soviet regime however did not encourage such foreign contacts, and the proposal was not responded to. But in 1991 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Armenian Church Committee of India renewed its invitation and by 1992 the first batch of Armenian children from the independent Republic of Armenia landed in Calcutta. In 1994 another batch arrived, increasing the number of students to 97. The other centre of social life is the Armenian Club of Calcutta. A number of indoor-sports tournaments, social, wedding and christening receptions and functions, and other welfare, cultural and sports organizations are held here. Till the late 1970s cultural programs were organized in the Club once a month and Armenian folk songs and dances performed.

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Conclusion The Armenian community of Calcutta is barely visible today. The scattered reminders such as street names, tombstones, fine hotels and the important focal points for the Armenian community – the churches, Armenian Philanthropic Academy, Armenian Sports Club – the most visible and permanent identifiers of the presence of an Armenian population in the city testify to this once active branch of the Armenian diaspora. The large and thriving Armenian community of Calcutta had been one of the richest anywhere in India, but their assertive presence and position as eminent merchants has sharply declined in the last 50–60 years. The Armenian community of Calcutta today numbers 300, a small fraction of the oncedynamic community of 5,000–6,000. One of the main reasons for this decline in numbers is migration from Calcutta to other developed nations as a consequence of their inability to compete with the British, who were equipped with powerful means and backed by strong governments. This led to large-scale emigration to areas of South-East Asia and the Far East, which were beyond the control and influence of the Europeans. A considerable number left India for England, the United States and Australia in search of better education and job opportunities. Another equally important reason was their conservative attitude towards marriage. They refused to get married outside their community, resulting in low marriage and birth rates despite prosperity and affluence. Like the Jews, Parsis and Anglo-Indians, the Armenians left the city and the country which had once offered them refuge. The first exodus of the Armenians from Calcutta was in mid nineteenth century when gold mines were opened in Australia. The next stream of departure was in and after 1947, when India gained independence. Many private companies were nationalized and the slogan ‘India for Indians’ was implemented. The Armenians grew apprehensive about their future and many Armenian businessmen decided to leave the country. Thoughts about the future of their children, who they felt would find it difficult to compete with Indians, led to many migrations to the United States and United Kingdom. Subsequently, many Armenians left India after the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. By and large this stream of emigrant Armenians left for Australia. Their concern was well expressed in the statement made by a noted Armenian in the late 1930s: In the former years many Armenian lads, after leaving school, were able with their limited education, but good physique, to find employment on the Railways as ticket collectors, guards, drivers and firemen, but with the

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Indianization of the Railways that avenue is practically closed down for them. Many used to obtain employment in the jute districts, but the jute trade in eastern Bengal, of which the Armenians were the pioneers, has now passed into the hands of the Scotch and the ubiquitous Marwaries. What prospects have the poorly-educated young men in this country, with keen throat-cutting competition on one side and the increasing nonemployment on the other.11

Armenians in Calcutta today are dispersed residentially and occupationally. At present when they have sharply decreased in number, the main and painful concern of the community is their complete assimilation into the mainstream and their bare visibility as an ethnic group. According to the records in the Armenian Church during the early twentyfirst century, there are 92 Armenians in Calcutta and almost 250–300 half-Armenians from inter-ethnic marriages. The pure Armenians are mostly elderly people aged above 70. Most of them receive charities from the Church. Some of them live in the Homes, which have been set up for sick and elderly members of the community. To be an active Armenian in Calcutta today requires effort, time, money and careful planning. There are the Armenian Churches, Armenian Club and Armenian Sports Club, which are the places where at present the Armenians meet and interact with each other. The present concern of the Armenian Church Committee of Calcutta is to preserve the Armenian colony and its properties. With this end in view, it organizes gatherings on Armenian holidays in churches, in the Armenian Club and Armenian Sports Club several times a year, to establish and maintain communication between the Armenians and to develop and pass on a tradition of Armenian-ness. These gatherings are usually crowded as they are attended also by exogamous married couples, their children and grandchildren. There have been various changes among the Calcutta Armenians. Their earlier conservative and exclusivist ethnicity has become, for practical purposes, a part-time ethnicity, restricted largely to the domain of leisure. There has also been a great deal of assimilation into the mainstream society. In spite of being staunch followers of the church, the Armenians of today are not conservative, at least on the issue of inter-community marriage. As Victoria Stephen, employed with a private firm says: How can I plan beforehand who I should fall in love with ? My mother is a Hindu and she follows her customs. The community does not look down upon her; love has nothing to do with religion. Yes, the question of retaining one’s lineage is important, but is it more important than being able to freely choose one’s partner?12

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The same understanding is echoed by rugby player Henrik Terchounian: ‘I married a Punjabi girl but will that make my children less Armenian?’ His love for the city is undying: I came here at the age of nine. Students from Iran often come here for school education. Hopefully some would make the city their home.13

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, collapse of communism and birth of the independent Republic of Armenia, there has been a new impetus to the bonding between the Armenian diaspora and their homeland. The post-communist Republic of Armenia had officially defined the Armenian nation to include the far-flung diaspora, a policy in accord with the feelings of many diasporic Armenians. From this perspective the recent visit to India by Catholicos further reflected the importance of the Calcutta Armenians in the grand plan, and the growing pro-active, cohesive policy on the part of both the Armenian diaspora all over the world and the government of Armenia, to revive the worldwide Armenian identity and unify the Armenians across the world. One of the purposes of this Pontifical visit was surely to infuse new life into the community’s national and cultural existence, and revitalize the dwindling community in India. The entourage of His Holiness Karekin II, the itinerary and speeches delivered by him and other members of the delegation on various occasions during the visit, clearly indicated the enormous importance they attributed to the community of this city in building a strong bridge between the diaspora and the land of their origin. The visit conveyed the growing concern to preserve Armenian religion, religious institutions and national identity as a whole. The Armenians of the city today are optimistic about the future. As Zaven Stephen, a young filmmaker says: Much of my life has been spent with the church choir – it has become an important part of my being. So has India, which is my motherland while Armenia is my fatherland. I’ve never been to Armenia, but the Church and the School have made up for that. If ever I get an opportunity to go abroad I will, but only to return and serve my community. After all, India is one of the fastest growing economies […] The very existence of these two institutions says we are here to stay. There was an inflow after the 1914–15 genocide that saw two million people dead. My grandfather settled here because Kolkata was considered the land of opportunities, Bengal was a thriving trading centre. But for a community to survive, a friendly environment is a must and Kolkata gave us that.14

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NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9 10

11 12 13 14

It is worth mentioning here that for the Armenians, Etchmiadzin and His Holiness Karekin II are like ‘Rome’ and ‘the Pope’ for the Catholics. Roy, Samaren, ‘The Calcuttan’, Calcutta: Society and Change - 1690-1990, Rupa & Co., 1991, pp. 31–8. Nair, Thankappan, Calcutta in the 18th century, Firma K L Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, 1984, p. 31. The Armenian merchants bearing the title ‘Khojah’ sometimes give an impression of being Persians. But this Persian word used during the Mughal period signified an honorific title, equivalent to ‘Sir’, and was borne by the Armenian merchants of distinction and high repute. Seth, Mesrovb Jacob, Armenians in India, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day: A Work of Original Research, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., 1983. This was the Calcutta Station and Ticket Reservation Room of the Eastern Railways. From here the Railways ferried the passengers to their trains at either Howrah on the opposite bank, or to Sealdah, by the Railways-run launch and horse-pulled trams, respectively. The Station was in use between 1854 and 1874, and was discontinued after the construction of Howrah bridge in 1874. Nair, P Thankappan, Calcutta in the 18th Century: Impressions of Travellers, Calcutta, 1984. Seth, Mesrovb Jacob, op. cit., p. 15. Seth, Mesrovb Jacob, op. cit., p. 540. Sircar, Jawhar, ‘Armenians: Merchant-Princes of the Past’, The Telegraph, Calcutta, 29 May 1983. Seth, Mesrovb Jacob, op. cit., p.617. The Statesman, 4 March 2005. Ibid. Ibid.

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Armenian Jew and Child (of Calcutta). Photograph Courtesy: Bourne and Shepherd, Calcutta.

Chapter 3 THE JEWS OF CALCUTTA Sipra Mukherjee One of the first Jews to arrive in Calcutta towards the end of the eighteenth century was Shalom Aharon Ovadiah HaCohen. He was an ambitious young merchant from Alleppo who came to Calcutta via Surat. Interested in establishing trading links from London to Shanghai, Shalom and the other early Jewish settlers traded in indigo, ivory, cotton, yarn, gold leaf, silk, Veniceware, precious stones, coffee, and cash crops like sesame oil, jute, sugar, spices, indigo and later, opium. Shalom was soon joined by his nephew Moses Simon Duek HaCohen, who played a key role in framing the first constitution of the community. Around this time also arrived, for a brief period, Joseph Ezra whose son David Ezra, was soon to return to Calcutta and begin to create the Ezra empire. With uncanny foresight, David invested in real estate, realizing that the dingy and disreputable streets of Calcutta would soon be commanding a high price as the capital of British India. The two famed synagogues of Calcutta are the Beth El and the Maghen David. Though the first generations of Calcutta Jews spoke Judeo–Arabic at home, by the 1890s English was widely spoken. They also moved to a select residential area south of Park Street and began to take a prominent role in Calcutta’s public life. The Jewish community of Kolkata was part of the colonial elite and two Jewish clubs were established in the city, the Judean and Maccabi clubs, which became the haunts for social intermingling of the richer Jews families. Living in the area of Chowringhee, European in costume, habits and language, with polo, cricket and social clubs, the Jewish community was often identified with the Europeans by the Indians. With the rise of Indian nationalism in the mid-twentieth century, the Jews were less comfortable in the city than before. With the creation of the independent state of Israel in 1948, about half the Jewish community left India for Israel. The other half, afraid their economic circumstances would decline after India gained

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independence from Britain, spread out to other English-speaking countries – England, Australia, Canada and the United States. Jael Silliman in her book, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope,1 calls the Baghdadi community ‘a diaspora of hope’. As the community moved from Baghdad to India and the Far East in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and later reconstituted themselves in the Western world by settling in Australia, England, Israel, the US and Canada in the latter half of the twentieth century, it advanced its social and economic positions with each of these moves. This diaspora of mobility and gain, she feels, shows that diasporic processes do not have to be framed in terms of overwhelming loss, exile and displacement.2 But she also writes about the darker side of the Jewish community in Calcutta who turned, early in the nineteenth century, to a far more profitable commodity – opium. Silliman observes: They played a pivotal role in this infamous and unfair triangular trade that impoverished China and India [...] and directly supported British economic hegemony and imperial rule. [...] they clamored unsuccessfully for European status, which the British never granted them. Most Baghdadi Jews had British colonial ideas of race and placed themselves in the upper echelons of the racial pyramid that structured social life in the colonies. Neither British nor Indian, the Baghdadi Jews clung tenaciously to their Jewish identity.

For either spiritual reasons or for better economic opportunities, the emigration of Jews from India in the twentieth century has indeed been en masse. The Jewish Girls’ School in Calcutta, once a centre for the cultural and social Jewish elite, no longer has a single Jewish student or teacher. The synagogues in India have stopped holding regular services because they cannot gather a minyan, the required number of ten males necessary to hold a service. There are at present 25 Jews living in Calcutta, all of whom are above 65 years of age. David Nahoum, who has a confectionary shop in New Market, is one of the Jews who calls Calcutta his home. Though the children and the young have all migrated to other countries, many of them still have relatives in the city, and their visits to Calcutta are not as infrequent as would be generally expected. The recent judgement pronounced by the Calcutta High Court has considerably widened the meaning of the expression ‘the Community of Jews in Kolkata’ to all ‘Jews who have at some time been a part of [...] Kolkata or even genuinely interested in Kolkata…’3 The person whom we have interviewed, Michael Ezra, is from the Ezra family whose connections with the city have spanned generations. He now resides in London, but is closely associated with the city of his birth

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and childhood, making about four to five trips a year both for his business connections and to look up his family members.

The Interview Sipra Mukherjee: Mr Ezra, most of the Jews who were inhabitants of this city have now left. Could you tell us about the time when you moved out? Michael Ezra: I moved out of Calcutta with my mother, as a very young child, in the 1960s. My father had a successful engineering business here. My mother wanted to take us away, I suppose, for education, – and also because a number of the Jewish families were already migrating away from Calcutta at that time. This migration had started in the late 1940s. So we moved to London. We spent some early years there living with family and friends where everybody supported each other till the community established itself. SM: What were the reasons for this migration that was taking place? ME: Primarily for education – for developing reputations in law, medicine, academics, music, culture, – and I think there was a feeling that perhaps that couldn’t be done here. But it must also have had to do with the way people saw India. I think they had the wrong idea about where India was going. And I think that there clearly was a conflict derived from the way the new India was viewed. Nineteenth century India with its roots in the British reign, and the changes that were perceived as a part of 1940s’ India, – I don’t know what the changed perception was, – but there was a big change in Jewish attitudes after the War and after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. SM: When had your family migrated to India? ME: My father was born here, as was my mother. Three of my grandparents were born here as well. The Jewish community had migrated here from two places – Syria and Baghdad. To understand this, you have to understand the coming of the Jews to Iraq. About 2000 years ago, just after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman invasion of Jerusalem resulted in the destruction of the Sacred Temple. The strife had been continuing for about 450 years, but the complete destruction occurred in about AD 69. This resulted in a huge migration of the Jewish community from the Holy Land of Jerusalem to Mesopotamia, the modern-day Iraq. There are two distinct communities among the Jews. One is the Sepahrdic community of Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and the other is the Ashkenazaic community of France, Germany and Eastern Europe. SM: Who are the Black Jews of India? ME: The Black Jews of Bombay are the Bene Israel community. They are

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people who arrived in India around the fourth or fifth century BC. Some say there was a shipwreck near the coast of India, and that is how they came here. There has been a good deal of intermarriage between them and the Indians, but they have preserved many of the Jewish traditions. If you go to the synagogues, you will see them worshipping with great fervour, but nonetheless they appear Indian. And their cultural lives as well as their spiritual lives are completely Indian. They’ll never leave India, you see, because their connections with India are very deep. They are Indian. Whereas the connection of my family with India, in spite of its staying here for three generations, is not as deep. We’ve been guests here, we’ve transited through India for 100–150 years. SM: Did your family keep any contact with the community in Iraq? ME: No, to the best of my knowledge, there was no connection with any one in Iraq. Once my ancestors had left the cities of Baghdad and Alleppo, and come to India, their connections with India were established almost immediately. They did not keep any contact, – neither my father, nor my mother. Once they came here, it was a complete, irrevocable migration away from the Middle Eastern community. I am giving you the historical background because I want to stress that these were the original, authentic descendants of the very first Jews who had come from the Holy Land after the destruction of the Temple in AD 69. SM: But didn’t your grandparents have any memories of their earlier homeland? ME: I didn’t hear much from them, since only one out of my four grandparents was born there. Distant cousins or their parents, – they sometimes talked about it. But I’ll tell you how the continuity works – it works through the dress, the language, – Arabic was the language that was spoken; and, quite commonly, – through the food. SM: Did your parents also speak Arabic? ME: Yes, they did. And so the language survived a complete generation after the immigration to India. When the Jews arrived in India, they would speak Arabic. Only Arabic. Some of the more educated, and by educated I mean educated in the Jewish texts, the Talmudic scrolls, – they might speak Hebrew to one another at times, – the classical language. And then that Arabic language became Hindi. I guess that had to happen to integrate and interact with the local community. SM: Even in Calcutta, – they spoke Hindi? ME: Yes, Hindi. Not Bengali. I don’t remember any Bengali being spoken. Bengali was always a mystery. But there would be local people who would visit the house. And very quickly the Jews involved themselves in commerce. Commerce, trade – these were the basic imperatives that had

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brought them to India in the first place. They traded in the usual things, – spices and fabric, and maybe also a bit of opium on the side. But that commerce has not continued at all. At the peak, there were about 5,000 Jews living in Calcutta. All of them lived around the area of Bentinck Street, Brabourne Road and the area behind Brabourne Road. In a remarkably short time this migrant community bettered themselves, immersed themselves in commerce. They were very well off. Some families sent their children to study in England, to universities like Cambridge. Some of them joined the army. There were lawyers, doctors in the space of a generation. A migrant, itinerant, and, I’d think largely dependent and penniless group of people arrived over a period of 50–80 years, and then very quickly developed their roots and their arrangements with the local community here. And then, once established, the first thing they did was to build a community centre – the synagogue. People were sent to Florence to measure the dimensions and look at the architecture of the great Florentine synagogue, which was then effectively reproduced here. The Maghen David, which means the ‘Shield of David’, is the largest synagogue in the East. It is in the Renaissance style, with beautiful pillars, wonderful colours, vaulted ceilings and galleries; – there is no parallel for this synagogue in the East. There was another one in Pollock Street, the Beth El. Huge amounts of money were poured into these synagogues; in modern valuation, it would be tens of millions of dollars. So, not only was this a sign of a very prosperous community, it was also the mark of their establishment in Calcutta. It was as if to proclaim, ‘We’ve arrived’. SM: We hear there is a lot of litigation going on now about these synagogues? ME: Lots of litigation. This is a very interesting aspect of the present Jewish community. There is an ideological divide over how the Jewish properties and institutions should be dealt with, now that most of the Jews have left the country. There are about 20–25 Jews left in Calcutta now. All of them belong to the older generation. My father’s brother is here – he became 85 last week. Many of them are very elderly, very dependent. There are Jewish trusts and properties here which yield a certain amount of financial interest, which is then re-distributed. But the real principal is tied up with the value of the synagogues. Of course, the Jews who are left here have an attitude which, put simply though perhaps a little crudely is, ‘We stuck it out. So this belongs to us. You just kissed goodbye to it and left. Now don’t try coming back here and saying it belongs to you.’ But when I come back here, I don’t have any personal interest in it. The interest that drives me is the need to bring some financial security to the Jewish communities living in abject poverty in different parts of the world. I feel that it is only fair

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that this great legacy of the community in Calcutta should somehow help to alleviate those in difficulty. SM: But how do the Jews who live in Calcutta view your interest in these matters? ME: In 1989, there was a move to sell off a part of the Maghen David synagogue car park to a developer. There was a court case and one of the two parties was a Jew now resident in England, whose locus standi was questioned by some of the Calcutta Jews. The case went on to the High Court, and in the course of his summing up, the Judge said that the Jewish community of India included not only the people who lived in India, but also those who had relatives here, who visited, whose families were linked to Calcutta, who had been born here, or whose fathers were born here. And so by that statement, my status here is para passu with that of anybody who’s lived here throughout his life. I feel I have as much right to voice my views about our heritage. SM: What was the verdict? ME: The car park was not sold. The Judge did not accept that it was in the best interest of the Jewish community to do so. My interest in the Calcutta heritage predates my business concerns here. My mother’s brother had never left India; I used to be very close to him. I would come over to help him with his interests and estate. He was very much involved with the upkeep of the Jewish heritage and it was his view that all this could not really belong to the few Jews who are here. This money had been created by our ancestors, and they would not have wanted it to just sit here doing nothing. There are many poor Jewish families in Israel who could benefit from these. He felt very strongly about it. That is how I got involved. With the help of the Bengal government I’m sure we could work out something. By no means do we want to deprive Calcutta of its heritage. Two of the great synagogues have already been given over to the Archeological Survey of India. There’s the Jewish Girls’ School, – not a single Jewish girl in it, but it’s got a great academic reputation. There is a cemetery here which has got three or four thousand graves in it. My father is buried there, three of my grandparents are buried there, as well as other family members. You know, it makes me very sad to see the state of the cemetery, which is not very well maintained. This is a huge area, many acres of extremely valuable land at Narkeldanga. It was bought at a time when people felt that the Jewish community was going to continue to grow and thrive here. Well, about a third of it has been used as a cemetery, and the rest of it will never be used because there are only about 18 or 20 people left here. There are many others like me who are concerned, – in London, in America, particularly in LA, – others who feel this sense of

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connection with the heritage, and with the city of Calcutta. I have never lost my connection with Calcutta. I keep coming back. SM: Isn’t that strange? Since you left at such a young age? Was your mother very attached to this city? ME: No. My mother couldn’t stand it here. She was fanatical about cleanliness. She passed away only a few months ago, – and she never wanted to come back. My sisters have never had any desire to come back. For some reason, I feel a great connection with this city. In fact, between leaving school and joining university in England, I had a year off, and I came back here to spend some time. I travelled around India with my father and aunt. That was my first real taste of India. And it was at an age when you are young enough to be impressionable, but old enough to appreciate things. You know, at that age, you are full of this spirit of adventure, and things come at you with a kind of sensory overload really, – the smells, the sights, the sounds, – I loved it here. And since then, I’ve been back every two or three years. Now, of course, I come here almost five or six times a year, but that’s more for business reasons. People tell me that there’s no place in the world except Israel where there is no antiSemitism. Feelings of racial distinction caused by anti-Semitism, – whether it’s institutionalized, or a subtle undercurrent in public affairs or in the academia, in business, or maybe more brutal like name-calling, – you see it in Europe, and increasingly in England. My friends say there’s nowhere you can go where you won’t find that. Except possibly New York. And I tell them they’re wrong. I say to them, come to Calcutta. I cannot even now imagine the hospitality and sense of belonging that can be experienced here by Jewish visitors. There is no hint of anti-Semitism, and I cannot imagine a finer place to live in than this city. I really cannot. SM: Was there any cultural exchange or mingling as a result of the stay in Calcutta? ME: There are some lovely amazing recipes that combine the old dishes of Middle Eastern origin with the spices and techniques of Indian cookery. So, Indian Jewish food is a special kind of food that does not exist anywhere else. It’s a combination of two completely different cuisines – a sort of exchange of flavours. I cook a lot of it myself. There’s one chicken dish called hameem. One of the things you’re not allowed to do on the Sabbath day, which starts on Friday night and goes on till sunset on Saturday, is cook. So, whatever you cook has to be cooked beforehand, – so you’re looking for dishes that have a long, slow cooking period, – which can be eaten for lunch on Saturday when you come home from the synagogue. Saturday is the day you go to the synagogue – and you probably want to have a good lunch to come home to. To cook this dish you have to clean

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the chicken, open it up, then stuff the insides with rice, spices and chopped up chicken, – and then carefully sew it up again. It is then surrounded with rice, garam masala and lots of chicken fat to give it body, then put inside a container and allowed to cook slowly over a low oven for 12–15 hours. You can imagine – when you bring it to the table on Saturday afternoon, and open the lid, – there is the most delicious aroma. Yet another interesting dish is the khubba which are balls made of semolina. We make a flat sort of pastry with the semolina, put chopped spices, chicken and garlic – and then fold it up. It’s about the size of a golf ball, which is then cooked in gravy. This dish seems to be becoming popular in London now, where one or two restaurants have it on their menu. An interesting consequence of the cultural mingling occurred when the Jews in Calcutta hired Muslim cooks. The old Muslim recipes were simply not viable in Jewish cuisine. All cooks were Muslims in those days, and they were amazed when told that cream or yoghurt could not be added to the lamb dishes. In Jewish cuisine, you’re not allowed to mix meat and milk – it’s not part of the kosher world. So the cooks improvised by adding coconut milk instead. Thus we have these wonderful dishes with chicken/ meat and coconut milk. There are also dishes with bekti, pomfret and hilsa cooked in Jewish spices. SM: Does the Calcutta Jewish community come together for the festivals? ME: No, unfortunately not. In order for a synagogue service to be spiritually viable, you need ten men to form the minyan. Without these ten men, there are certain blessings and aspects of the service which simply cannot be performed. Even till about eight years ago, there used to be ten men who would regularly go to the synagogue, some of whom were actually paid to do so. Regular services would be held on Saturdays, the Sabbath day of rest. They would bring out the Torah, the Big scrolls, the five Books of Moses which are handwritten on parchment. These Books are not allowed to be read unless there is this quorum of ten men. So, it gradually became more and more difficult to open the synagogue, and unfortunately, since about 2001, there have been few service in the synagogues, very few. When I come to Calcutta and look at this great heritage and the dwindling number of Jews, I feel, how I can tell you – it’s a strange sense of life being just so transient. Two hundred years of glorious history, and all that is left of it now are the buildings, - which again are so fragile. The only legacy that remains is really in people’s memories, and that makes recording these histories, which are fast disappearing, so important.

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NOTES 1

2

3

Silliman, Jael, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope, Seagull Books, Calcutta, 2001. Interview of Jael Siliman to AsiaSource, 8 March 2007, [http://www.asiasource.org/ arts/silliman.cfm]. Suit No: 162 of 1988, Samuel Sadka and Others Versus Aaron Harazi and Others, in the Calcutta High Court, Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction, by the Honourable Mr Justice Ajoy Nath Ray, 22 December 1992, High Court.

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Acharya Kripalani with his bride Sucheta Mazumdar on their wedding day. Photograph Courtesy: Sajni Kripalani Mukherji.

Chapter 4 THE SINDHIS OF CALCUTTA Sajni Kripalani Mukherji I write this essay with some degree of trepidation. First, because it is by no means an academic paper. Second, because in some senses this is not a subject that admits of academic presentation. I am of this community but also in many senses outside its pale. If you hear the first person far too often in this essay, it is because it is largely one person’s recollections of the last 55 years. No research work has gone into it. Aside from memory, this essay has few sources; however with memory having become the strong suit of social scientists in the present generation, I suppose you will bear with me. Many years ago in 1956, when the oldest of my sisters married a Bengali, Acharya J B Kripalani, who was a good friend but no relation of my father’s, sent my father a strange long telegram. Referring to his own marriage to a Bengali Brahmo woman Smt. Sucheta Majumdar, later first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state, and to that of Krishna Kripalani (also no relation) to Nandita, granddaughter of Rabindranath Tagore, he had written, and I quote the telegram exactly: Dear Prita, What is this bolt from the blue! Hitherto I have referred to all Bengalis as my ‘salas’. Now you have given them the opportunity to retaliate. Of course I am deeply happy and shall do my best to attend the wedding. Love to you all, Dada.

Although born by a technicality in Karachi, I too have lived all my life in Calcutta, been a State Scholar of the West Bengal Government, (my father’s long standing domiciled status helped), have spent all but two years of my working life in Bengal, and been married to a Bengali for the last 36 years. Somewhere along the line I regret that I have lost the credentials to speak authoritatively about the Sindhis. However, they remain in some ways my people and the community is visible so strongly in some pockets of

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Calcutta that they deserve a little serious attention, even if it is from a somewhat lapsed Sindhi. Back in their homeland when they had one, the Sindhis could be easily divided into three groups. The Amils were the first group, descended from the tribes of ironworkers (lohanas), who had then become revenue officials first for the Moghuls and then for the British. The Amils are therefore primarily middle class people, rather highly educated for Sindhis, work in government, or in the middle class professions, though some went into some business or other at the time of Partition, when jobs were scarce or educations incomplete. To give you an example of the latter, my cousin Naval Kripalani completed Intermediate Science in Karachi in 1946, and joined Electrical Engineering in Jadavpur much later to complete his degree in 1955. Many Sindhis in those post-Partition days had this kind of disturbed education and most of them were somewhat older than their class mates. The second were the Bhaibands, the baniyas or merchants, who had a widespread trading network along the silk route, who travelled down the centuries on camels, in dhows, and progressed happily in more recent times to ships, trains and aeroplanes. They are a mobile community. Their men have at least always been very mobile. I shall come back to their roving ways a bit later. There are also the Shikarpuris who form a kind of in-between group. They hail from North Sindh and shared the large trading empires of the Bhaibands. Some also entered, like the Amils, various middle class professions by studying for them. The hostility between Amils and Bhaibands is infinitely stronger than that between the Bangal and Ghoti in Bengal.1 The Amil will pretend to be of a superior caste and say ‘bhenrsa vanya’ (an expression akin to bhanchud), and the Bhaiband will say ‘mua khuttal Amil’ (as if to say ‘damned perpetually impoverished Amil’). Both groups swear expertly. The raunchier among them claim that the Sindhi can swear for half an hour without repeating a swear word. Watching my father play chaupar (‘pasha’) with friends as a child, I can vouch for this. They did not swear at each other but the joy with which they used the vilest expressions about the dice would have done the three revelers in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale proud. I listened to the range of swear words with total respect. The best single study of the Sindhis, mainly those of the international business community, is that of Claude Markovits2 and I recommend this to anyone working on the Sindhis as a first read. While he does manage to grasp some of the essentials of this diasporic community, he finds it frequently difficult to substantiate some of his arguments regarding the Sindhis, who are diasporic like the Jews, but who do not have the Jewish penchant for keeping records.

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Judging by the recollections of my father who came to Calcutta in 1918, the earliest Sindhis in the city, already settled, were families like those of the Park Street jewellers Satramdas Dhalamal. They owned the jeweller’s establishment, a worldwide network of shops and trade in silk and jewellery, with their own money-lending and stock-broking businesses. They were family businesses in the best traditional sense of the word. They occasionally went home to Hyderabad or Karachi and came back with new young assistants. In a community that doesn’t believe in records, it was very necessary to have men around you whom you could trust. They would have to be family members, or someone who came with very strong references for honesty and discretion. My father got his first job with them and in his earliest days was a stockbroker’s assistant, and then went on to establish his own business in insurance, in a laundry and later in a cardboard factory. He spoke with nostalgia of the ‘Office John’, a horse-drawn carriage and later on of a car with the side-door removed, both of which he used in his stock-broking assistantship days. The removed door of the car made it easier to seize the ‘perfect moment’ (ain mouka) for purchasing shares. There were also silk merchants among them. Their descendants are still in this business and own some large old shops in the New Market area, many of which now have branches elsewhere in Calcutta and in the new malls. Among the other long-term residents in the early decades of the twentieth century were some Amils like Mr Thadani of the Railways, the ICS Kripalanis, the Punwanis who owned the most exciting shop of curios at the front of the New Market, and the owners of a large bar-restaurant and house of ill-repute on Free School Street. This somewhat disjointed essay will be delivered to you in three sections: I) The Sindhis in general as a species with habit, habitat, food habits, festivals, religion and occupations. II) The Sindhis in Calcutta: pre- and post-Partition. III) A small section on Sindhis’ self-fashioning. I shall do this with reference to a curious set of journals brought out by a childhood friend of mine.

I The Sindhis came originally from a region that was part desert and part richly irrigated valley of the Indus. They have always been a much travelled people. Long before words like international, multinational or transnational became common parlance, the Sindhis had made the Silk Route their own. Over time they have traded in nearly all kinds of goods, in more

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recent times – transistor radios, computers, TV sets, calculators – as long as any of these had scarcity value. There is almost certainly a murky side to this history one would imagine, though I have no papers to support this – that they would always have traded in whatever needed to be traded in – luxury goods like jewellery and silk, and I daresay slaves. The Gujaratis have acknowledged their own history in this respect.3 The Sindhis who don’t believe in keeping records have not done so as yet. Smuggling, having wives in several places, all these are carefully brushed under the carpet and one only occasionally hears of them. The old Silk Route out of Sindh is dotted with pirs.4 And initially at least, Sindhis seemed to have no major communal prejudice. The wives went along on this first lap of the journey but then went back home and kept the home fires burning, while praying at every memorial of a pir, and at Hindu temples or Buddhist stupas, for the safe return of their menfolk, perhaps also praying that their menfolk would have contracted no fresh matrimonial alliances in the interim. While Islamic influence penetrated north-western India comprising Kashmir and the North Western Frontier province through a series of invasions since the early twelfth century AD, large parts of Sindh and Baluchistan fell within the dominions of Arabic Caliphates from the middle of the eighth century AD. It is not therefore surprising that many words are the same in Arabic and Sindhi – basic ones such as the word for egg – bedo. It is only later that one finds folklore and love ballads derived from Turkish or Iranian lineage (via Afghanistan) becoming a part of Sindhi cultural and folk tradition in common with other regions of northern and western India. This history of a much longer tradition (by three and a half centuries) of interaction with (or subjection to) Islamic state power and culture than other parts of north-western India, calls for a special historical and socio-cultural investigation that, as far as I know, has never been adequately addressed. Sindhis distribute misri as a token of bonding, particularly during betrothals and marriage. The word and the gesture go back to ancient links with the Arabs and Egyptians – something Amitav Ghosh tries to suggest in his novel In an Antique Land. The Sindhis celebrate two festivals peculiar to themselves annually. One is Cheti Chand, the Sindhi New Year. The following is an extract from Burton who wrote about Sindh in colonial times:5 We find Islam and Hinduism amalgamated here in a more remarkable way, perhaps, than in any other part of India. The Hindu will often become the disciple (murid) of a Muslim, and vice versa; not only are the same saints respected by members of both religions, but each faith uses a different name

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for the same holy man. The Hindus know the river-god under the name of Jind-Pir (a corruption of zindah, ‘the living god’) while Muhammadans call him Khwaja Khidr; in the same way Udero Lal of the Hindus becomes the Musalman Shaikh Tahir and Lala Jasraj becomes Pir Mangho…

When I speak later of the self fashioning of Sindhis in the present time, I regret I shall have to tell you that much of this simple sense of community with Muslims has been lost, though even now they will tell you that their greatest poet ever was Shah Latif of Bhit. The other festival held in November each year is the birthday of Guru Nanak. The Sindhis prided themselves on being Nanakpanthis, or followers of this most peaceful and eclectic of the Sikh gurus. The staple Sindhi food is wheat but they make delicious pancake-type foods out of bajra and jowar as well. Throughout summer the night meal, and in winter the day meal consists of a light dry khichri with sai bhaji which is a healthy mixture of spinach, one kind of dal and a bunch of seasonal vegetables. Sindhi women battling with the ravages of the desert are very clever about drying vegetables to store them against lean months, and also inventive with making pickles for the same purpose. Sindhi meals always conclude with the papad 6 cooked on an open fire. They are great fish-eaters. Their koke pallo (hilsa) is delicious – it travelled from the mouth of the Indus, backwards many miles towards Thatta where the large shoals were collected. Jhulelal7 himself travels up the Indus from the sea on a large ilish (hilsa). They also cook and eat a lot of meat and are hearty consumers of alcohol. Recipes exist for liqueurs and wines in traditional Sindhi families to this day. But the Sindhi is happy enough with vegetarian food if khichri, sai bhaji and papad are available. When I first read Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, I had been very impressed with the food that Bilbo Baggins prepared when he started off on his quest. It was a set of flat cakes which could be savoury or sweet, they could be used almost indefinitely (as their recipe included natural preservatives), and once you ate small pieces you did not become hungry again for a long time. To me this exactly described a kind of breakfast preparation of the Sindhis, called loli or koki depending on whether you came from Upper Sind or the South which worked in exactly the same way. It is a preparation of wheat flour to which onions, ginger, herbs, salt and pepper are added along with water and ghee, or alternatively sugar and ghee. The cakes are then slowly cooked on a tava8 with more ghee added and indentations made on either side to absorb the ghee. They last forever – I have known relatives who stay abroad to take a years’ supply whenever they come here.

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These cakes were taken on long journeys because the Sindhis were great travellers along what used to be the old Silk Route. Journeys by camel, by foot, and then by sea if necessary would take them to their ports of call. They mingled easily with Arabic and later Mongolian traders. Their friends included the Arabs, the Turks of Central Asia and finally the traders of Mongolian communities in East Asia. They would pick up goods on the way to sell at ports along their route and bring back others and sell those along the route back. They had their ears to the ground and knew the (mostly exotic) tastes of people along the routes. Where the goods on offer were not immediately acceptable to potential customers, their glib tongues, speaking a pidgin version of each local language, would take over, and they rarely went to bed at night without having made substantial sales. If you are familiar with the New Market in Calcutta, you will be familiar with these sales tactics. Their flair for languages is reflected in the fact that unlike any other community in India, their own language in which they live and love, is a Sanskrit-based language with many Arabic and Urdu words; the script is Arabic, and they do their praying in Gurmukhi, from being Nanakpanthis. Most can read their favourite Sukhmani9 in this language. My own grandmother, otherwise illiterate, could read Gurmukhi (self-taught) and signed her name on official documents in the Gurmukhi script. Nowadays, with Sindhis being trendy gadget freaks, you will hear the Sukhmani chants coming out through CD players and sophisticated music systems from most Sindhi homes in the mornings.

II Prior to Partition there were only some ten families settled in Calcutta. My family was one of these; there were also the jeweller families of Satramdas Dhalamal and B Motiram, and a very strange one (with a really murky history) – the owners of Isaiah’s restaurant on Free School Street. Sindhis are easily ghettoized and even then, most of them lived in the New Market area, close to their places of work. My father, who was what the Sindhis call a ‘chhino chhoro’, i.e. a man without attachments, lived alone, and developed a large cosmopolitan group of friends. It was a politically active group; he met Prof. P C Ray among them, Annada Prasad Chowdhury, Meghnad Saha and attended some popular science classes they organized. The group met at what used to be the Robert's statue on Red Road every evening. Sometimes they met at the crack of dawn when the meetings were of a secret nature. One or two Sindhi friends attended many of these meetings with my father. There was a general anxiety in these years about independence, about repressive

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police action. My father’s greatest joy came when he was jailed in 1944 by the British government for seditious behaviour. He dined out on it till his dying day. The other Sindhis in the group, or indeed, Sindhis in general were somewhat apolitical, but often contributed to the cause of the Congress. Acharya J B Kripalani was a hero among the Sindhis of Calcutta because of his proximity to Gandhi. He, Prof. Naraindas Gidwani and other Sindhi leaders in the Congress occasionally came to Calcutta on fundraising drives, and were hosted by the two or three Sindhis who had acquired politics in a generally apolitical community. In 1947, all hell broke loose. Sindhis back in Sindh had thought that the Partition would not really touch them. Many tried valiantly to stay on in Pakistan. The continuing violence eventually brought them in droves, in trainfuls, in truckloads and walking across the Border. I guess they sounded like droves but at the time they were only seven per cent of the total population of Pakistan. Many of them settled in and around Ajmer, in Rajasthan, because of the climate, the proximity to the desert, and similar food and living habits. Never having been to Sindh since the year of my birth, I have found Ajmer a kind of home because of the vast numbers of Sindhis who live there, where the street foods are such as I have only eaten at my grandmother’s home, where Sindhi is spoken in the streets, and where from the coolie at the railway station to the owners of cinemas and restaurants, everyone seems to be Sindhi. This was not true of Calcutta at the time of Partition. Sindhis came in large numbers and at first stayed with friends, relatives or anyone they had a connection with. I have no recollections of the time since I was only two when it happened, but my oldest sister who started studying medicine that year in Calcutta Medical College often reminds us of a period of nearly a year when she slept on a dining table to accommodate the many visitors, all in dire straits, and each claiming a close relationship. An aunt of mine used a characteristically Sindhi expression at the time: ‘Utthu chacho makori masat.’ Literally that would translate as ‘someone who claims the camel is his uncle and a large ant (deu pipre) his maternal cousin’. As they would say in Bengali, with a touch of irony, ‘khub nikat samparka’. Times were hard – families that had been used to a fairly cosmopolitan existence having lived a long time away from Sindh were suddenly thrown into completely Sindhi environments. My sister tells me that the new arrivals thought those who had always lived in Calcutta as a strange species of animal. The feeling was apparently mutual. But the fresh arrivals were all searching for ways of starting up on their own and in time moved to their own homes mostly in the New Market area, and acquired or created employment or income. A large number of refugees were housed in a

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particularly unpleasant area behind the New Market, on Free School Street, across the road from two enormous garbage dumps and pigsties. Two close friends of mine from those days lived in this unpleasant building and I can remember visiting them and always feeling slightly sick at the smell. Inside the building however were such memories of Sindh as people permanently alienated from their homelands possess. Velvet khilafs10 and kheshes11 in brilliant colours, for instance. Most of the single-roomed spaces surrounded an open terrace and you would see papads or vegetables roasting or pickles maturing in the afternoon sun, laid out on charpoys12, braving Nor’westers and monsoons, or the women brewing the aromatic khus sharbat and thandai13 in the evenings. One of these homes possessed a Sindhi jhula14 made lovingly by wood craftsmen and lacquer workers of Hala in Sindh, traditionally famous for its pottery and woodwork. Many times my father or other earlier residents of Calcutta tried to buy this jhula off the family who were deeply in debt, but they refused to part with it. On another front, the children were all trying to adapt to a vastly different schooling system where Sindhi was not even taught, and could never have been the medium of instruction. In general, formal education often proved too much for many of these youngsters. It wasn’t just a language barrier. There was an in-built resistance to schooling. I recall the boys almost refusing to learn, of spending entire days fetching and carrying for their parents rather than going to school. On their part, the parents did not seem to object to this. They expected the son to join the family business and for that a certain basic schooling was all that was required. Many did not ever get to high school. One boy I remember was quite the bane of his parents’ existence because he was a whiz at Maths and English and went on to college and University, long considered irrelevant for a young man. I hear he runs a software firm in Mumbai now. The girls however were more adventurous and studied in school, college or university, and went on to acquire interesting jobs. Some even succeeded in helping out in later years with their family businesses with a greater flair than the young men, even though as far as their parents were concerned, they needn’t have bothered as their raison d’etre was to be married off in time, if the parents could raise the inordinately large dowries that were being demanded for eligible young men. Many imbalances happened as a result of this. There was a generation of educated spinsters and long-term bachelors who refused to marry each other. Dowry rates were predicated on this imbalance. I can remember my father telling a really charming IAS Shikarpuri young man not to demand a dowry. He said if he didn’t, his sister would have to stay unmarried, since his parents would transfer the cash to her prospective in-laws almost immediately.

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When I say that the young boys were growing up without education, I should hasten to add that the quantity of folk maths required for the business usually sufficed them. I have heard them do major calculations in the premetric days, when a formula built into folk memory served very well. One was based on this formula – jetre rupaye mundr otre aane adhai ser – i.e. if a maund, for example, costs Rs 8, then 8 annas will be the price of 2½ seers, – very much like ‘subhankari’15 in Bengal. And the sales prattle was always with them, their urge to make a sale moving easily with their energy. In the early days after independence, the leaders of the community, usually from among the older long-term residents, persisted with the Nehruvian secular discourse. Through group meetings organized by the Sindhi Panchayat, Sindhi Merchants Association, Sindhi Ladies Club and our very own Balkan ji Bari, the children’s group, there was a belief in the emerging India, in equality and multi-culturality. The children’s group in particular sang ‘Hindu Muslim Sikh Issai hain aapas me Bhai bhai’, and there were many Chinese, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim and Anglo-Indian children who were our close friends, with whom we went on picnics, whose festivals we shared, and whose food we ate. The Chinese and the Sindhis got on well. One or two of my childhood friends married into the Chinese community. It was the best of all possible worlds, a cosmopolitan one, and it was ours. I remember old Mr Hafesjee (Bohra muslim), who organized the Metro Cub club to which we went every Saturday. He was affectionately called Uncle Leo after the well-known roaring lion in the Metro Goldwyn Mayer logo. Salman Rushdie talks about a similar club in his beloved Bombay. Among the Sindhi children in this group, there were as yet no major repercussions from the trauma of Partition. Sometimes one heard the odd politically incorrect reference to Muslims or Bengalis or Gujaratis, or AngloIndians but one barely noticed it. The feelings of communalism were not as clearly articulated then as they have been in the recent past.

III Now I come to the last section of my essay... I have studied with some degree of attention the copies of the Calcutta Sindhi, a local journal, brought out in English. Every issue contains a piece of history – about Cheti Chand, Guru Nanak, Sadhu Vaswani or Ishwar Balani.16 Nearly all of them are shown in opposition to Islam and ‘those Muslims’. One short story is about a young girl who ran away with a Muslim boy and came to a bad end. I wonder how it is that the editor, a dear friend of mine who sang ‘Hindu Muslim Sikh Issai hain aapas me Bhai Bhai’ ever came to this pass. Jhule Lal or Udero Lal is now a Hindu god, an incarnation of Vishnu, who saved the Hindus from Muslim tyrants.

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What used to be the Niraguna Balak Satsang Mandal, became, with the rise of Sikh trouble, the Holy Mission of Indian Culture, and is now named Amrit Vela Mandir. During the cheery Mardi Gras type procession for Cheti Chand and Guru Nanak’s birthday, there are images of many major Hindu gods and goddesses, including those made fashionable by Hindi cinema such as Sheravali Ma and Santoshi Ma, and an occasional picture of Christ. No prizes for guessing which group is missing, arguably the one with whom Sindhis have had the longest historical connection. I have tried to find reasons for this. Perhaps in the present context, I need not waste time on the familiar pattern of changes in the global scene that started in the 1980s and gathered momentum in the 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century. The retreat of official socialism and the aggressive expansion of international finance capital weakened the grand nation building designs of the so-called ‘Independent’ sections of the Third world, and Islam emerged as the only challenge/antagonist to the market monolith. In India, this was marked by the decline of the hegemonous Congress party and the emergence of regional political formations emphasizing religious, ethnic, linguistic and caste identities. This was reflected too in the urban or metropolitan atmosphere of the mega-cities and also of lesser towns and cities, where even the hitherto apolitical social elites (with elements of the corporate business world among them) now sought to identify themselves with the spirit of majoritarian nationalism – a tendency that has often been euphemistically called ‘political Hinduism’ to distinguish it from personal piety or the observance of rituals. Among the Sindhis, such a movement found a ready resonance in identifying with Hindu sub-nationalism as a part of the larger assertion of political Hinduism. It made them remember their lost homeland – exemplified by the then current leaders of the BJP. In them, the new urban Sindhis found their heroes. Speaking further of modes made popular by Hindi cinema, I must add that the Sindhis are deeply influenced by it. In a community that doesn’t read much, this is the only form of entertainment. Holi or Diwali celebrations or weddings see Sindhi girls and boys dressed like their heroes and heroines in Hindi cinema. Recently when a lad in our building got married, all the young men were seen wearing the dupatta made popular by films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, and girls wearing ghararas and cholis17. A male cousin who had no sisters of his own asked me to join him on Raksha Bandhan day to tie a rakhi18 on him. I went along with a bare rakhi and found a party on at his home. Most particularly his ‘rakhi sister’, exquisitely turned out in ornate clothes (‘exact copy of Karishma’19 in some film, my sister-in-law told me) insisted on playing a full CD of all the songs

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from Hindi cinema which had to do with rakhi, e.g. ‘Bhaiya mere rakhi ka bandhan tu nibhana’ and such like, while she did an aarti20 around him and fed him lovingly with her own hands. She made me feel inadequate. The Sindhi contribution in capital and talent to Hindi cinema is often listed in the Calcutta Sindhi. I found a magazine coming out of Bombay which is almost identical to the Calcutta Sindhi in recording such contribution. On the internet too I found a great deal which turned out to be more of the same. The best single item I discovered was a Sindhi site on which there was a photograph of communal harmony in a Cheti Chand procession in Lucknow. It was a colourful picture of three young men dressed as Amar, Akbar and Anthony modeling themselves on the wellknown Hindi film in which three brothers, separated in childhood, grow up in three different families, a Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian one respectively. In spite of its slavish imitation of a celluloid stereotype, I like to think this means that there is still hope for a community that is easygoing, hardworking, a-intellectual and fun-loving.

NOTES 1 2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10 11 12

The people from the East and West of Bengal respectively. Markovits, Claude, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama, Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, No. 6, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000. See Gunavanantrai Acharya, Dariyalal, tr. Kamal Sanyal, Dictum in Association with Thema, Calcutta, 2000. The original, a classic of Gujarati literature for children, was published in 1938. 'Pir' is the Persian word for a Sufi saint. In this context it refers to his tomb, a site considered to be a place of pilgrimage by the religious. Richard F Burton’s writings on the Sindhis include: Sindh and the Races that Inhabit the Valley of the Indus; With Notices of the Topography and History of the Province, London, 1851 and Sind Revisited: With Notices of the Anglo-Indian Army; Railroads; Past, Present, and Future, etc., 2 vols, London, 1877. A wafer-thin flatbread made of a variety of items such as lentils or chick pea. It is usually roasted over an open fire and served with Indian meals. The community God of the Sindhi people, whose birthday is celebrated as the Cheti Chand festival in the Chaitra month. A flat, slightly concave griddle used as cooking utensil in South Asia. Sukhmani is the set of hymns divided into 24 sections which appear in the Guru Granth Sahib, the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs. A quilt. A heavy blanket that is usually hand-woven. A bed consisting of a wooden frame and tightly strung ropes interwoven together to support the occupant. It is also called the khatia. The ‘charpoy’ is a word coined from the two words ‘char’ and ‘pai’ which mean ‘four’ and ‘legs’, which refer to the four-legged wooden frame of the bed.

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13

14 15

16 17

18

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These are cooling drinks whose recipes have been handed down through the generations in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. They can be prepared in a variety of ways according to the climate or occasion. ‘Khus’ is the vetiver grass, native to tropical Asia, and ‘thandai’ is a traditional drink made of nuts, milk, sugar, poppy, watermelon seeds and cardamoms. A wooden swing that was usually hung indoors. Subhankari refers to the mathematical formulae used by Subhankar, the mathematician wizard from early Bengal, which became popular as methods of quick calculation among the traders of East India. Vaswani and Balani are spiritual leaders of the Sindhis. The ‘dupatta’, ‘gharara’ and ‘choli’ are items of clothing worn by Indian women. The ‘gharara’ is a billowing long skirt, usually worn with a ‘choli’, which is a short blouse, and ‘dupatta’, a long scarf usually draped over the shoulders. Raksha Bandhan is the Hindu festival which celebrates the bond between the brother and sister. The ritual consists of the sister tying a rakhi, a colorful thread or wristlet around the wrist of the brother, who in turn promises to love and protect her. A popular film actress in the Hindi films. A Hindu ritual in which prayers are offered to the gods to bless and protect a loved person while a lighted lamp held in the hands is held or moved in front of him/her.

‘Nakhoda Mosque,’ Calcutta, 1944, photograph by Glenn S Hensley. Photograph Courtesy: Hensley Photo Library, University of Chicago, The Digital South Asia Library.

Chapter 5 THE CITY OF COLLEGES: THE BENGALI-MUSLIM1 IN COLONIAL CALCUTTA

Sipra Mukherjee A hint of an education and next he’ll be suffixing a ‘Khan Sahib’ or prefixing a ‘Syed’ to his name. Mohammad Yaqub Ali, Jater Barai.2 Calcutta has, for the past hundred years or more, been looked upon as the city to which thousands have travelled for education and employment. The founding of the Calcutta Madrassa (later Alia Madrassa) in October 1780 and the Calcutta University on 24 January 1857 by Warren Hastings, by the incorporation of an Act of the Legislative Council, established Calcutta as the centre of education in the east. These institutes of higher education attracted students from all over Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa and many other states. Education, in the changed context of the postMutiny period, was the route through which many discovered the tools to create a new, and more desirable, identity. It was the key of access to employment, and thence to privileges that had been till then closed to many. With its numerous schools and colleges set up by either the Christian missionaries3 or the native wealthy landlords and later the government, with its mercantile promise and its colonial institutions of power, ‘no other Indian city dominated its hinterland as completely as Kolkata dominated Bengal’.4 People from the far-flung rural regions of Bengal journeyed to this distant centre of power, braving the terror of thugs and enduring the lack of proper inns along the way, the extremes of weather, the discomforts of transport. With a letter of recommendation from a distant relative or influential friend, he trekked, hiked and rode his way to Calcutta. This essay looks at the function of the city in shaping the education of the Bengali-Muslim around the beginning of the twentieth century. It attempts to trace how the city attracted hundreds from East Bengal, brought them

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geographically nearer to the centres of political power, gave them access to the printing presses and publishing houses of North Calcutta, and enabled them to establish their identity as Bengali and Muslim, simultaneously. Though it is the babu, the middle class, upper caste Hindu bhadralok, who is the most commonly associated figure with nineteenth century Calcutta, the Bengali-Muslim population resident in Calcutta was not negligible. In the 1830s, the Bengali-Muslims ‘numbered about 45,000 – one-third of the city’s total Bengali Hindu population’.5 This aggregate, however, did little to enhance the position of the Muslim community at large, since the majority of this population was poor and belonged to the labouring class. Yet, a small though influential ashraf 6 Muslim society did exist within the city of Calcutta. According to the 1872 census, 20 per cent of Calcutta’s population was Muslim.7 As Debasis Bose writes, by 1856, there were at least 28 thoroughfares in Calcutta named after Muslims.8 However, unfortunately he says, the linguistic identity of these stalwarts has not been ascertained. This was particularly difficult within the precincts of the city because within a generation or so of residing in Calcutta, the Muslim would adopt the Urdu culture completely. Most Muslims, whatever their ethnic origin, aspired to the culture of the upper ashraf class who were Urdu-speaking and more North Indian than Bengali in their cultural orientation. Despite this, among the many influentials whose social positions are corroborated by the street names, were two Bengali-Muslims recognizable by their titles, Noor Muhammad Sarkar and Sooker Sarkar. Though most Bengali-Muslims were engaged in family occupations like tailoring, selling fruits and vegetables, working as cooks in rich Bengali households or driving carriages,9 there were also the hakims, the maulvis, the munshis and the vakils. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a self-conscious and educated Bengali-Muslim middle class began to form within the city. The changes that were to be wrought in the system of public education over the coming decades of the 1900s were largely due to the efforts of this community.

The Bengali-Muslims and the Ashrafs Though the Bengali-Muslims were lesser privileged, considered socially inferior, and keen to imitate the Urdu-speaking ashraf, the twentieth century saw a transformation in their character and stance – a change that was gradually revealed in the increasing role they played in the planning, controlling and imparting of education – a sphere that grew intensely political from around this time. Following the Islamization of the Bengal Muslim community that occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth

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century, it often became impossible to distinguish the Urdu-speaking Muslims from the originally-Bengali-but-now-Urdu-speaking Muslims of Bengal. Both their personal and family names show signs of Arabicization.10 Abdul Karim describes how school registers were often used as the instrument for recording this change of surname.11 Many among the Bengali-Muslims adopted the Urdu culture of the ashrafs and preferred Urdu as the medium of instruction for their children.12 The Islamization encouraged Muslims to view Bengali with ‘contempt and perhaps disgust’ and consider Urdu the ‘language of their jat’.13 This distaste for Bengali was aggravated by the fact that the Bengali language itself, with its Sanskritized words, was viewed as being peculiarly Hindu. The belief that adopting the Islamic languages would grant them an easier entry into the ashraf circles prompted many who used Bengali at home to embrace the Urdu culture. Some of the Muslim families who came to Calcutta were originally distant relatives of the royal families of East Bengal. But there was a larger number which, though belonging to the ashraf class, did not belong to the Urdu-speaking community. However, since a vertical movement through the class structure was possible in the Muslim community, unlike the more rigid caste-bound society of the Hindus, many families ‘rose’ to the Urdu-speaking class either through prosperity or marriage. The Report of the Muslim Female Education in the Metropolitan City of Calcutta writes: ‘Although Bengali was the language of the district population, yet it was found, that Bengali-Muslims settled in the metropolis became bilingual and eventually adopted Urdu within a few generations.’14 It was thus almost impossible to differentiate the Bengali-Muslims from those whose mother tongue was Urdu. This inclination of the Muslims of Bengal to be counted among the Urdu-speaking population was a consequence of the belief in the ‘basic contradiction between Bengali and Muslim identities’ and this ‘appears to have been accepted by all BengaliMuslims, Bengali-Hindus and even the British’.15 When The Mahomedan Observer wrote, ‘The Bengalis have at last succeeded in extorting a firman against cow-killing from the ruler of Bengal’,16 the writer was equating the Bengali with the Hindu. Thus, the findings of the 1911 census of the city of Calcutta which showed an abnormal increase over 1901 in the number of Urdu-speakers within the city and its suburbs, was attributed to ‘the attitude taken up by a large number of Mussalmans with regard to their language. They insisted that they spoke Urdu and were strongly averse to the entry of Hindi, considering that the former meant the language of the Mussalmans and the latter the language of Hindus, though as a matter of fact, in a large number of cases, neither community spoke either Hindi or Urdu, but Bihari.’17

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Table 1: Distribution of Linguistic Groups in Calcutta and its Suburbs in the Years 1901 and 1911 Language Bengali Hindi Urdu English Source: Census of India, 191118

1901 494,420 353,786 27,627 28,979

1911 512,579 365,339 70,558 28,430

The ratio of the Hindu–Muslim population in the city began to change rapidly with the Muslim community gradually awakening to the needs of English education. The inflow of Bengali-Muslim students into Calcutta increased, and with this also changed the ratio of the Urdu–Bengali speakers within the Muslim community itself. Despite the quotient of glamour that the Urdu ashraf culture carried, Bengali students were finding it difficult to master the increased number of ‘new’ languages that the syllabus demanded. In 1902, the Bengali-Muslim periodical Islam Pracharak writes that the load was unusually heavy on a Bengali-Muslim boy because as a Muslim he would have to learn Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Bengali and English: ‘While the Hindus have to learn only two or three languages, the BengaliMuslims have to master five...’ and therefore, ‘many are now abandoning three of our traditional languages (Urdu, Persian and Arabic) and preferring to educate their children in only Bengali and English to prepare them for the world’.19 Though most Bengali-Muslims accepted the superiority of the Urdu culture, the practical difficulties involved in learning a syllabus of such huge proportions sometimes discouraged students. The desire to see one’s child grow up as a ‘good Muslim’ (acquainted with Arabic to ‘read the Quran correctly’, with Persian so as to be well versed in national culture and etiquette, and with Urdu so as to be able to ‘converse with urban, aristocratic Muslim’20 ) was therefore tempered by the realization that emphasis on Islamic languages would greatly increase the burden and impede the advancement of general education.

Dynamics within the Community There was a difference within the Bengali-Muslim community in their attitudes towards the available education. The rural ashraf, especially those who were relatively prosperous, preferred an education that gave emphasis on religion and Persian culture. In 1869, for example, more than threequarters of the students of the Arabic department of the Calcutta Madrassa were children of petty landholders, talukdars, munsiffs, kazis and munshis, who came mostly from the districts of East Bengal. They continued to view education as a consecrated privilege, leading to pure knowledge,

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rather than as a secular means of learning. Rafiuddin Ahmed writes that the ‘weakness for the Islamic languages’ had always been present in the countryside.21 The Bengali writer Rajsekhar Basu or ‘Parashuram’ satirizes this fondness in the character of Maulvi Bachhuiruddi: He, Bachhiruddi, was no ordinary mortal. He was an aristocrat of noble lineage. Mughal blood flowed in his veins. Though people called him Bachhiruddi, his true name was Medram Khan. His father’s name was Jahabaaz Khan, his grandfather’s name was [...] their original home was not in Faridpur, but in the Arab lands, – what is called Turkey. There everybody wore lungis and spoke Urdu...22

The urban and suburban families of somewhat better means, however, were attracted to the more secular education and the English classes.23 The popular image of the culturally rich, sharif Muslim was built on the urban, aristocratic, Urdu-speaking Muslim. In reality though, under the pressures of the new economy, the urban Muslim was fast changing. Many of the Muslim Government officials and members of the Bar had left the city of Calcutta subsequent to the abolition of Persian as the Court language.24 The status of the Madrassa Alia had declined and Mr Chapman, the Acting Principal of Calcutta Madrassa observed that though ‘the Arabic department’s roll strength had increased and the syllabus standardized, yet its popularity had eroded a good deal...’25 In 1853, there was even a proposal (that was finally rejected) to close down the Madrassa. In 1882, Syed Amir Ali, speaking before the Craft Commission asserted that from 1860–1870, Muslim education had deteriorated and that Arabic and Persian departments were no longer attracting students: ‘In 1855 the number of students offering Arabic and Persian was 150 to 200; in 1860 it dropped to 30 only; in 1868 there were 10 or 15 students reading Persian in the Anglo-Bengali Dept of Hooghly Madrassa.’26 This was after reforms of a relatively radical nature had been carried out in 1853. These changes were in accordance with the suggestions of a Committee formed after agitation by the Calcutta Madrassa students in 1851. The enquiry committee which submitted its report on 4 August 1853, recorded that besides the Arabic Department and the English Department of the Madrassa, an Anglo-Arabic department had also been functioning since 1849. It recommended that these departments be closed and an Anglo-Persian Department, with sufficiently qualified teachers, be opened.27 It was also recorded that many among the Muslim ashraf preferred to send their wards to St Paul’s School or the Parental Academy where the syllabus was more ‘modern’. Students, after completing the

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Madrassa education, also sought admission in the Metropolitan College at Lower Chitpore Road.28 The explanation offered was that: ‘Though their urge for English education is not as intense as that of the Hindus, yet the Muslim intelligentsia and the gentry of the society are fully alive to its utility, and this awakening is to be exploited in the proper way.’29 This was the beginning of a new development, entirely different from the situation twenty years back when, between 1826 and 1851, Abdul Lateef and Wahidun Nubee had been the only two junior scholars to be produced from the English class of the Calcutta Madrassa at a cost of Rs 103,794. The class had been a complete failure. Discipline was unsatisfactory and at least two of the staff, an Arabic professor and the English Librarian, were reported practising as hakims in the city during their class hours.30 Regarding the question of female education, both Bengali- and Urduspeaking Muslims remained conservative in thinking. An interesting incident, which revealed the cautious approach of liberal leaders, occurred at a meeting of the Bengal Social Science Association in Calcutta, where Abdul Lateef was reading a paper on Muslim education: In the discussion which ensued at the meeting, Peary Chand Mitra enquired if similar efforts at female education were underway in the Muslim community as in the Hindu. The reply came from Maulvi Abdul Hakim of the Calcutta Madrassa. He said that the scriptures had ordained education for both boys and girls and to this end many Muslim women were renowned throughout history for their learning. But such education was imparted within the home. It was unthinkable that Muslim girls following the example set by girls in other communities, should go outside the home for education, violating the ‘purda’ enjoined in religion. Abdul Lateef did not say anything.31

Consequent to more debates and developments regarding the Calcutta Madrassa, a Managing Committee was constituted in 1871 for the Calcutta and Hooghly Madrassas.32 This Committee proposed that the Arabic branch of the Madrassa be called Anglo-Arabic Department, among other significant changes. This development however, does not appear to have been appreciated by all the Bengali-Muslims and Mujibur Rahman, referring to the reforms, writes: It appears that the spirit that guided the committee to thrash out the deliberations was aimed at abolishing the classical way of teaching Arabic and Persian, and paved the way for a full-fledged institution to impart education on English pattern [...] this was the view of those who were dressed with western ideas. But the Muslim masses of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (which constituted Bengal in those days) were rightly of opinion that Islamic

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culture and learning would enormously suffer [...] The committee knew the mind and general feeling of the Muslim masses, hence they did not dare denounce the utility of the classical learning...33

Neither were the ashraf Muslims of Calcutta unanimous in their stance regarding the preferred system of teaching. In 1882, in his observations to the High Power Commission for Education, Nawab Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur said: ‘That in regard to Islamic culture and religious knowledge, it is essential to learn Persian and Urdu without which a man cannot maintain his position in Muslim society. If possible he must learn Arabic as well which is indispensable for performing religious duties and functions.’ Caught in the centre of these conflicting needs was the Calcutta Madrassa. The relevance of this institution as a centre of study had been rapidly diminishing. As Sir Syed Ahmed said in 1882, the institution ‘neither imparts English education of an accepted standard, nor makes that education compulsory, and the result has been that some three hundred of the Muhammadan scholars reading in it have remained destitute of English education’.34 In 1884, based on the findings of the 1882 Education Commission, the Madrassa students were allowed to attend classes at any Calcutta college, public or private, on a payment of one-third the usual fee, the balance being met by the Mohsin Fund.35 In 1887, the college department of the Madrassa was merged with the Presidency College, the arrangement being that Muslims would pay the same fees as at the Calcutta Madrassa and 35 seats would be reserved for them. In addition, 20 places would be reserved for Muslims in the Hooghly Branch School, 50 in Nawab Bahadur Zilla School, 51 in Krishnanagar Collegiate School, 62 in Jessore Zilla School, 30 in Dhaka Collegiate School, 50 in Rajshahi Collegiate School, and 10 in Darjeeling High School. 36 This opportunity was extensively used by the students, thus confirming the need felt by the Muslims for a ‘modern’ education. ‘As a consequence the number of Madrassa students in the Madrassa college classes never exceeded twenty – and in 1888 it was proposed to close these classes.’37

The Bengali Initiative The move to make Persian and Arabic optional would come much later when the burden of the many languages on the Bengali-Muslim student was formally acknowledged by the Report of the Committee on Muslim Education in 1915.38 In a near echo of the 1902 Islam Pracharak, the Report said that the burden of five languages was unfair to the Bengali-Muslim and decided that, besides Bengali and English, the learning of Urdu, Persian and Arabic would no longer be compulsory. A deputation of Muslims

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submitted a memorandum to the Calcutta University from the ‘Muslims of Calcutta’, signed among others by Fazlul Haq, Maulvi Abdul Karim and Abdur Rahman, and observed that: Though we cannot drop the study of any of the five languages, it is not necessary for every individual boy to study all of them. The Muhammadan boy whose mother tongue is Bengali should receive his primary education in Bengali and should study a classical language, Arabic, Persian or Urdu...39

Some years earlier, in 1908, the Earl Committee in its meeting had commented: Urdu had been accepted to be the mother tongue of the Muslims of Bihar, Chotanagpur, and Orissa.40 In Presidency and Burdwan Divisions of Bengal, the mother tongue of the Muslims is Bengali, but in certain parts of Bengal, as for e.g. Calcutta, Murshidabad and Hooghly they speak Urdu. Therefore at these places, Urdu should be the medium of instruction as is current in Madrassa Alia and its Anglo-Persian Department.41

This formal policy of 1915 was the consequence of years of canvassing, continued through the pages of a number of Bengali-Muslim periodicals, printed in the city. Educated Bengali-Muslims gathered together, and debated whether the effects of ‘modernization’ could be termed Islamic or not. They wrote innumerable articles on the need for education and the consequences of the education system in periodicals which were published from the city’s Baithak Khana Road, Collins Street, the ‘Sealdah Palli’,42 the Colinga Mohalla and the Kareya area. These Calcutta periodicals were the Samachar Sabharajendra (begun in 1831), Jagaduddipak Bhaskar (begun in 1846), Muhammadi Akbar (begun in 1877), Mussalman Bandhu (begun in 1885), Naba Sudhakar (begun in 1886), Sudhakar (begun in 1889), Mihir o Sudhakar (begun in 1895), Naba Nur (begun in 1903), Moslem Hitaishi (begun in 1911) and Kohinur (begun in Kustiya in 1898, but continued in Calcutta from 1911). The first of these periodicals, the Samachar Sabharajendra, was in Bengali as well as Farsi, and the second, the Jagaduddipak Bhaskar, carried writings in Urdu, Farsi, Bengali, Hindi and English. The first entirely Bengali-Muslim periodical was Mir Musharraf Hussain’s Azizun Nehar, published from Chinsurah. The ‘Sudhakar group’ of writers drew the attention of the contemporary literary world as Bengali-Muslim writers who used pure Bengali without any trace of the ‘Mussalmani Bangla’ in their writings. (Their use of pure Bengali, however is even more interesting because they were using the language for a communal purpose. Anxious at the conversions to Christianity that

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were taking place among Muslims dissatisfied with their language and religion – two significant markers of identity – the ‘Sudhakar group’ were determined to liberate the moral and intellectual life of their community.) The use of the Bengali language in these periodicals frequently drew remarks of censure or praise from the contemporary Hindu Bengali periodicals. The following comment, quoted in the Bengali-Muslim periodical Mihir (1892) is taken from the contemporary Bengali Hindu paper, Samay: Even a few days ago, the Mussalmani Bangla was unreadable to the Hindus; but with the progress of education, the difference in writing between the Hindus and Mussalmans is fast disappearing. The Mussalmans are writing pure Bangla like the Sanskrit-learned scholars of the Hindus. This is a subject of pride for the land of Bengal.43

It also quotes the Hitakari who writes of Mihir: ‘Grace and lucidity of language is the unique feature of this periodical. In reality, this feature may be found in quite a few Mussalman-written newspapers and journals these days.’44 The Muslim periodical Pracharak had quoted the Hindu periodical Samay: ‘In many essays, if the name of the author is not specified, it is not possible to imagine that the writing flows from the pen of a writer who is of a different religion or different language.’45 Quoted without any apparent feelings of indignation at the openly patronizing tone, this may suggest that such reviews were appreciated by the Bengali-Muslims and that the literary world of the Bengali language was rapidly becoming one which the Bengali-Muslim wanted to claim as his own. Education in Bengali, however, introduced other difficulties. The President of the Rangpur Association, Khan Abdul Majid Chowdhury writes that ‘the Muhammadan parents also do not like to educate their children in Bengali only, as the language is full of Hindu polytheistic ideas and thoughts, and tends to denationalise their youths.’46 Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury,47 in his speech at the Muhammadan Educational Conference held in Calcutta emphasized that an increasing number of Muslim boys were attending ‘the Vernacular schools and that Muhammadans now speak Bengali more correctly than before.’48 When he published this speech, he appended to it an Appendix of 49 pages. In this, he described with excerpts from the question papers and text books the difficulties that the general syllabus posed for the Muhammadan boys: ‘A specimen question illustrative of the fact that in the vernacular School Exam all students, including Mussalmans and Hindus, are generally required to have a thorough consequence with Hindu mythology:

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1895 – Question: Why Bishnupriya Rama (woman who loved Bishnu) lived at the bottom of the sea? History of India by Kishto Chandra Roy – p. 17 – According to the Muhammadan scripture, the Koran, it is not a sin but an act of piety to use force in the propagation of religion. Kabita Sangraha by Ishwar Gupta: Bara sab dhere dhere, chhagal dere, Nere paane ruke, chore ghaare, Koshe dao haare haare thuke. (They are all like big beasts, goat-bearded, Ride on the necks of these shaven-headed And, in full anger, lash them and beat them bone by bone.)49 Nawab Ali Chowdhury’s translation may not be perfect, but the general prejudice inherent in the quoted passages is quite clear.’

The Controversies over Education The activities of the Muhammadan Educational Conference held at Calcutta in 1899 revealed the endeavours of the liberal-minded Muslims to bring madrassas in line with ordinary schools and colleges. Invited by the Bengali elites Syed Amir Hussain Ali and Mirza Shujat Ali Beg, the Conference was presided over by Syed Amir Ali, who differed in his political views from Syed Ahmed.50 A resolution was moved (and passed unanimously) on its first day by Abdul Karim and Dilwar Hossain, the first Muslim graduate from Bengal: Though the suggestions put forward by Amir Ali on behalf of this Conference in 1901 were, except for a relatively minor matter, turned down by the Government of Bengal, the event made the Muslims conscious of their needs. Encouraged by the success of this Conference, they arranged for a Muhammadan Educational Conference on a provincial basis. This was declared an ‘unqualified success, considering [...] that unlike other communities, the Mussalmans have to be moved by a very slow process of persuasion. There were about four thousand delegates present, many of them coming from Dacca, Comilla, Chittagong, Noakhali, Searjganj, Jessore, Pabna, Rungpore, Natore, Calcutta and other places.’51

It is around this time that the Bengali-Muslim middle classes, which favoured secular education and therefore Government-run general schools, began to make their presence felt in the madrassa education system. Their influence in a sphere, which even ten years earlier had been seen as the territory of the Urdu-speaking ashraf, is revealed by the decision of the

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Governing Body of the Madrassa Alia in 1917 – that regarding the teachers’ appointments, duly qualified Bengali-Muslims should get preference. It was only after the Partition of 1905 that a reasonable number of schools and colleges began to be established in East Bengal. Before this, as Muhammad Abdur Rahim writes: ‘the educational development of East Bengal was in total neglect... Most of the educational institutions were centred in and around the capital city of Calcutta.’52 Not much help was received from the ‘Hindu zamindars who had their estates in the Muslim majority districts of East Bengal’ because the zamindars ‘lived at Calcutta and promoted education of Hindu Bengalis in West Bengal’.53 With the acceptance of Bengali as a rightful language for the Muslims, the earlier equation of Bengalis with Hindus gradually began to recede. Sir Syed Ahmed, on the conflict between the communities and the role of the Congress in 1909, wrote: ‘[...] if you take the population of the whole of Bengal, nearly half are Mahomedans and something over half are Bengalis.’54 That such an equation was not acceptable to the BengaliMuslims is made clear by many articles. The Pracharak, writing of the 1901 census, says that the eighth column on ‘jati-parichay’ ‘required the Muslim to write Sheikh, Sayyid, Moghul or Pathan – one of these 4 titles. In the rural areas, some of the census officials entered Ashraf or Atrap in these columns’. Protesting against this, the editor writes: Sheikh, Sayyid, Moghul and Pathan – these four titles are not the indicators of ‘jati’. They are merely ancestral titles. Therefore, if the eighth column identified the Bengal Muslims as Bengali, the Punjab Muslims as Punjabi, etc, – then the necessary identification would be served.55

Around 1917, however, the issue of the language of the Muslims was complicated by the other controversy regarding the State language of India. With Gokhale and Tilak supporting Hindi as the State language, the Muslims put forward Urdu as the lingua franca.56 This resulted in a greater importance to the Urdu language and served as an encouragement to the support for Urdu in Bengal. In 1917, the Al-Eslam, in an article advocating Bengali for Bengali-Muslims wrote: That does not mean Bengali Muslims should desist from learning Urdu... Hindu politicians are striving to introduce the Hindi language and the Nagri script [...] on the off-chance that it will become the State language throughout the whole of India when India becomes self-governed. Under these circumstances, is it not the duty of Muslims to attempt to place upon the head of their own language and script (i.e. Urdu language and Arabic script) the prestigious crown of the future State language of India by disseminating it everywhere?57

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However, many articles in the Bengali-Muslim periodicals continued to articulate the claim of Bengali as their mother tongue. In 1918, the Bangiya Mussalman Sahitya Patrika wrote: There cannot be any argument regarding the fact that Bengali is the mothertongue of the Bengali Muslims. Though some may be infatuated with Urdu [...] both Hindus and Muslims have an equal right to claim Bengali as their mother-tongue.58

This demand for Bengali by the Bengali-Muslims was repeatedly linked to the need to introduce education in their mother tongue in the madrassas: The only way a nation can acquire greatness is through its mother-tongue. Yet, above the madrassas of our country we have written in bold letters, ‘Entry to the mother-tongue is forbidden’.59

The other contentious issue was the introduction of English as a compulsory subject in the madrassas. The D P I’s report of the Madrassa Alia during the period 1902–1907 read: [...] the medium of instruction is Urdu; in five topmost classes lessons are imparted in Persian; besides Arabic and Persian literature Arabic Dept teaches Fiqha, Mantiq, Balaghat, Hiqmat, Theology, Tafsir and Hidith. English is an optional subject which is read by 56 p.c. of the students.60

In 1903, Archdale Earle, who served as the Director of Public Instruction in Bengal from 1906– 08, strongly recommended that English be not made compulsory and that the classical course remain unencumbered by English: ‘we do not wish to prevent students, who so desire, from adhering strictly to Oriental studies’.61 Despite Earle’s view, however, it needs to be noted that the proposal was repeatedly placed before the Committee of the Education Conference from its very first meeting. The Conference on Education held at Calcutta in December 1907, brought together representatives from the five Divisions of Bengal and from the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. (This was during the period of Bengal’s partition in 1905, when the Dacca, Chittagong and Rajshahi Divisions, and the districts of Malda and State of Hill Tippera were joined with Assam to form the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam). The representatives from the Presidency Division (which included Calcutta) were five Europeans and 23 Indian Muslims. Among the Europeans were Chapman and Ross, both associated with the Calcutta Madrassa, the Secretary to the Board of Examiners, and two representatives of the Indian Educational Service. Among the Indians were Ataur Rahman, Maulvi

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Ahmad, Lutfur Rahman, Abdur Rahman, Syed Amir Hussain, Shamsul Huda, two representatives of the Central National Muhammadan Association and the Muhammadan Literary Society, a Judge and three vakils of the High Court, Professors from the Calcutta Madrassa and the Presidency College, Barristers-at-Law, and other eminent personalities from the Muslim community of the Presidency. Besides these, there were six members from the Burdwan Division, eight from the Patna Division, two each from the Bhagalpur Division and Orissa Division, and seven members from the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.62 A compromise regarding the introduction of compulsory English was reached and provision was made for a two-year course in English after a student passed the standard examination of the higher madrassa. It was in this context that a clear difference became visible between the opinions of the representatives from Eastern Bengal and Assam and those from the rest of Bengal. The former, who included Abdul Karim, Abu Nasr Waheed, Kamaluddin Ahmed and Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, refused to accept this compromise, demanding a thorough change in favour of English education. Regarding this, Archdale Earle reports that: There is a school, calling itself, ‘progresssive’ which aims at ‘modernising’ the madrassas. This school would like to see English taught compulsorily in these institutions, and the courses of studies arranged, so that there should be no difficulty in transferring a student from a madrassa to a high school.63

This group of ‘progressives’ though, added Archdale Earle, was not heeded in Bengal. The ‘archly’ dismissed ‘progressives’ were however not to be defeated easily. The seven members who represented the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam were all Muslims from Eastern Bengal and in 1909–1910, they convened a meeting at Dacca where a new syllabus and curriculum, including compulsory English, was drawn up for the madrassas on modern lines. This syllabus was reluctantly recommended by the then D P I Mr Norton, for introduction on an experimental basis in one selected madrassa. In 1912 occurred the rearrangement of the districts and divisions of Bengal, bringing East and West Bengal together again to form a Presidency. This change in the territorial distribution typically brought about a redistribution of powers as its corollary, and the syllabus suggested by the ‘progressives’ was viewed more favouarably in 1913. This year, the Dacca Scheme of Madrassa education, after some modifications, was given the assent by the D P I. In the junior classes, the subjects taught would henceforth include the Quran, Urdu, Bengali, Mathematics, Geography, History, English, Arabic, Drawing, Crafts and Drill. The senior classes would see a greater emphasis on Arabic Literature,

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English and Mathematics. On 3 July 1914, the necessary order for the implementation of this new reformed curriculum from 1 April 1915 was issued. The Reform Scheme was introduced with the orders from the Government-in-Council that preference regarding grants be given to madrassas that had accepted the Scheme. The Madrassa Alia however was kept outside its purview and it continued, as before, as a centre of Islamic learning. A distinction between the madrassas under the Old Scheme and those under the Reform Scheme aggravated the already strained relationship between the traditional Muslims who favoured an Oriental education, and those who were spearheading the movement for modern, secular education. Though the Dacca Scheme for madrassas had been an effort largely inspired by Bengali-Muslim leaders, an aligning of the Bengali- and Urdu-speaking Muslims as supporters of liberal and conservative education respectively would of course be simplistic. The linking of Government grants and recognition with the acceptance of the new curriculum naturally made it difficult for the madrassas to reject it. This not-so-subtle enforcement of the Reform Scheme by the Government was, in fact, resented by the majority of Muslims.64 Most of the 214 madrassas that existed before the Reform Scheme, of which 11 were Senior and 203 Junior Madrassas, accepted the Scheme. The recognition of at least one madrassa, the Bashiria Ahmadia Madrassa was withdrawn since it refused to come under the Reform Scheme. During 1917–1922, only the Darul-ulum Madrassa of Chittagong and Islamia Madrassa of Noakhali were awarded recognition.65 Gradually, however, over the next decade, a large number of madrassas were established in various parts of East Bengal.66 Through 1922–1927, three madrassas in Dacca, at least six in Noakhali, and four in the Chittagong area were established. The years 1927–1932 saw the establishment of two more in Dacca, seven in Mymensingh, and five more in Noakhali, two in Pabna, one in Chittagong, one in Faridpur, and some more in other districts. In 1931, the Muslim Education Advisory Committee under the Chairmanship of Khan Bahadur Abdul Momin recommended that all madrassas, whether Reform Scheme or Old Scheme, should follow the same curriculum as used in the Middle and High English Schools. The syllabus for the subjects of English, Vernacular and Mathematics should be similar in all these schools and Arabic should be taught through the medium of the Vernacular from Class V. The 1914 Committee on Muhammadan Education had noted that a greater number of Muslims, especially from the eastern rural belt, were attending school. The recent profits reaped from the jute trade were cited as one of the main reasons

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for the increased interest in English education. Over the next two decades, a growing number of Muslim students from ordinary rural families began to send their sons to local schools. Muslim education in East Bengal also received tremendous encouragement with the establishment of the Dacca University. This was despite strong opposition from the Calcutta-based bhadralok community who, anxious to safeguard the importance of the Calcutta University, contested the establishment of a new university within Bengal. But the Bengali-Muslims had voiced their dissatisfaction with the largely Hindu-dominated administration and bias of the University of Calcutta. They recognized the need for a university in East Bengal to facilitate higher education among the Bengali-Muslims. A Muslim deputation consisting of A K Fazlul Haq, Sir Nawab Salimullah, Nawab Syed Nawab Ali Choudhury and several other Muslim leaders, met the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge on 31 January 1912. They argued that the partition of Bengal, 1905–1911, had enabled the administration to focus on the education in the districts of East Bengal, a sphere that had seen much progress during this phase. The fear was that the bringing together of the two large Bengal divisions would once again detract attention from East Bengal. The Viceroy promised to recommend the formation of a University in Dacca and on 2 February 1912, the Indian government published a communique, stating the decision of the government to establish the University of Dacca. The Secretary of the State approved this decision. On 27 May 1912, the Government of India appointed the Nathan Committee of 13 members with M R Nathiel, Bar-at-Law, as President to frame the scheme of the new university.67 The Committee published its report in December 1913. The outbreak of the War placed financial restrictions on the Government and in 1916, to cut costs, it decided that the new university should start with four colleges only. The ongoing war however stalled the progress and when, in 1917, the matter was taken up again, it was felt that a report from the Calcutta University would be needed. The Calcutta University Commission, appointed by its Chancellor in 1917, refused to accept the proposal for an affiliating type of university. Its proposed autonomy was also debated, and many educators from Dacca wrote to the Commission arguing that the future university should be autonomous. Among these were Professor F C Turner, Principal, Dr Naresh Chandra Sen, Vice Principal of the Law Department, and Professor T T Williams, all of the Dacca College. In 1921, the Dacca University was finally established as a teaching and residential type of university. However, it was not granted the power to be an affiliating university. Otherwise, it would enjoy complete autonomy and the Governor of Bengal would be the Chancellor.

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Higher education for the Bengali-Muslim outside the metropolis of Calcutta had begun to concretize into a reality.

NOTES 1

2 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 13 14

15

The term ‘Bengali Muslim’ is used as an acknowledgement of both ethnic and religious identity of that community which is both Muslim and Bengali, and not as a comprehensive term for all the Muslims residents in Bengal. Ali, Muhammad Yaqub, Jater Barai, No place of publication given, 1908, p. 4. ‘The Baptist Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society established many vernacular schools in Calcutta and its suburbs’, Lateef, Nawab Abdul, A Short Account of My Humble Efforts to Promote Education, Ali, Mohammad Mohar, ed., pp. 206–10. No publication details available, pages missing. Gallagher, J A, ‘Congress in Decline1930 to 1939’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1973, p. 596. Banerjee, Sumanta, The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta, Seagull Books, Calcutta, 1998, p. 116. Ashraf (sing. sharif) refers to the upper class Muslim community which traced its lineage to the descendants of the Arab immigrants. ‘In Calcutta itself, Muslims were in a distinct minority, not more than perhaps 20 per cent. Of these the majority were day laborers-cooks, coachmen, and [...] in government service rose from 4.4 per cent in 1871 to 10.3 per cent in 1901 while for Hindus the figures were 32.2 per cent rising to 56.1 per cent during the same period’, Dutta, Krishna, Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination), Interlink Books, Massachusetts, 2003, p. 140. ‘Sadaruddin-Dedar Buksh-Alimullah Munshi, Imdad Ali-Golam Sobhan Moulvi, Lal-Budhu-Gulu-Nawabdi Ostagar, Karim Buksh Khansama, Rafique Serang, Anis Barber, Nazir Nazibullah, Sharif Daftari, Imam Buksh Thanadar, Khairu Methar had all lent their names to streets despite their varied social positions. There is, however, indirect evidence of their financial solvency. Even being a scavenger and a tailor respectively, Khairu and Gulu erected imposing mosques’, [banglapedia.search.com.bd], entry on Calcutta at the address [http:/ /banglapedia.search.com.bd]. Siddiqui cites the many areas where the Bengali-Muslims stay ‘bearing names of ethnic character such as, Mominpur, Tantibagan, Churipara, Kasai Bustee, Kasai Mohalla, Patua Para, Patua Tala, Nikari Pada...’, Siddiqui, M K A, Muslims of Calcutta: A Study in Aspects of Their Social Organisation, Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta, 1974, p. 11. Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims, 1871-1906: A Quest for Identity, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1981, p. 113. Karim, Abdul, Some Political, Economical and Educational Questions, Calcutta, 1917, p. 6. Hunter, William The Indian Musalmans, Rupa and Co., Delhi, 2004, p. 173. Bengal Education Proceedings, Calcutta, 1872, p. 78. Muslim Female Education in Metropolitan City of Calcutta, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Education, New Delhi, 1987, p. 8. Murshid, Tazeen, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses 18711977, Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1995, p. 87.

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18 19

20 21

22

23 24

25

26 27

28

29 30

31

32

33 34

35

36

37

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The Mahomedan Observer, 18 January, Calcutta, 1894, p. 28. O’Malley, L S S, Census of India, Vol. 6, Part II, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, Calcutta, 1913, p. 48. Ibid. Ma’az, Ebne, ‘Musalman Boarding ba Chhatrabas’, Islam-Pracharak, Year 4, No. 9–10, Falgun-Chaitra, BS 1308 (1902). Ibid. Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims 1871 -1906: A Quest for Identity, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1981, p. 123. ‘Parashuram’, ‘Birinchibaba’, Kajjali, M C Sarkar and Sons Pvt Ltd, Calcutta, 1986, p. 23. Ahmed, Rafiuddin, op. cit., p. 139. Karim, Abdul, Muhammaden Education in Bengal, Metcalfe Press, Calcutta, 1900, p. 36. Rahman, Mujibur, History of Madrassah Education: With Special Reference to Calcutta Madrassah and W. B. Madrassah Education Board, Rais Anwar Rahman Brothers, Calcutta, 1977, p. 164. Rahman, op. cit., p. 132. Sufia Ahmed writes of these efforts: ‘the only practical results of these efforts at modernisation were the introduction of English as an optional subject in the Arabic department in 1829, and the formation of the Anglo-Persian department in 1854’, Ahmed, Sufia, Muslim Community in Bengal 1884 -1912, University Press Limited, Dacca, 1996, p. 58. This college had been established by a wealthy philanthropist from the Dutt family of Wellington Square, Calcutta, in 1853. The college was allegedly destroyed during the Sepoy Mutiny. Rahman, op. cit., p. 99. Haque, M Azizul, History and Problems of Moslem Education in Bengal, Thacker, Spinck and Co., Calcutta, 1917. Chakraborty, Ashoke Kumar, Bengali Muslim Literati and the Development of Muslim Community in Bengal, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 2002, p. 58. The text of Abdul Lateef’s paper, ‘Muhammadan Education in Bengal’, may be found in Transactions of the Bengali Social Science Association, Calcutta, 1868. The Committee members included Hon’able Mr Justice Norman, Mr J Sutcliff, Mr H L Harrison, Captain H S Jarret, Prince Md Rahimuddin, Qazi Abdul Bari, Munshi Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur, Maulvi Abbas Ali Khan and Haji Md Zakaria. Rahman, op. cit., p. 111. Appendix to the Report by the North-Western Province and Oudh Provincial Committee at the Education Comission 1884, p. 298. Quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 59. For a brief history of the Mohsin Endowments Fund, see Report of the Muhammadan Educational Endowments Committee 1888, pp. 32-5. Khan, Abdul Rashid The All-India Muslim Educational Conference: Its Contribution to the Cultural Development of Indian Muslims, 1886 -1947, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2001, p. 226. Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p.59.

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39

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41 42

43

44 45

46

47

48

49 50

51 52

53

54

55

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Report of the Committee appointed by the Bengal Government to Consider Questions Connected with Muhammadan Education, Calcutta, 1915, para.94. Report of the Calcutta University Commission 1917-1919, pp. vii, 212, Calcutta 1919–1920. According to the Government Circular No. 1639/T G dated 14 September 1902, and No. 908 dated 23 February 1904, all students should be taught in their mother tongue. Rahman, op. cit., p. 151. Mohammad Akram Khan in his speech at the Third Bangiya Musalman Sahitya Sammelan, referred to the journal Muhammadi Akbar, published from Sealdah, the suburb of Calcutta, in the 24 parganas, as the ‘Sealdah Palli’. Quoted in Hossain, Talim, ed., Muslim Bangla Samayik Patra, Pakistan Publications, Dacca, 1966, p. 18. Samay’s article entitled ‘The Views of this Newspaper on Mihir’. Quoted in Rahim, Munshi Abdur, ed., Mihir, Feb. 1892, p. 41. Ibid. Mia, Madhu, alias Ahmed, Munshi Moezuddin, ed., Pracharak, 1899, page number torn off. The quote is from ‘Samay’, 8 Agrahayan, BS 1307. Khan Bhadur Abdul Majid Chowdhury to Govt of Bengal, 30 November 1902, Para.1, Bengal Education Proceedings, September 1903. Quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 25. Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, educated at Rajshahi Collegiate School and at St Xavier’s College was a signatory to the Simla Address, Vice-President of the Muslim League’s 3rd Session, founder-president of Muslim Bengal Federation, 1921, and father of future Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Bogra. Chowdhury, Syed Nawab Ali ‘Vernacular Education in Bengal’, (speech delivered at the 13th Session of the Muhammadan Educational Conference, Calcutta), W Newman and Co. (Caxton Press), Calcutta, 1900, pp. 18–19. Ibid., pp. 2, 3, 47. ‘After the death of Syed Ahmed, the Conference was supported by many Muslim leaders who had previously opposed it for one reason or another’, Khan, Abdul Rashid, op. cit., p. 50. The Moslem Chronicle, 9 April 1904. Rahim, Muhammad Abdur, Muslim Society and Politics in Bengal 1757-1947, University of Dacca, Dacca, 1978, p. 138. Footnote 1, Government Records, quoted in Mallick, A R, British Policy and the Muslims of Bengal 1757-1856, Dacca, 1962, pp. 277–82. Ahmed, Sir Syed, ‘An Indian Mussalman’, Part 1 of ‘Indian Mussalmans and Indian Politics’, The Hindustan Review, January, 1909, p. 52. ‘Aadamsumari o Mussalman’, Pracharak, Chaitra, BS 1307. This editorial is referred to as ‘significant’ by Abdul Kadir in his essay on Pracharak in Hossain, Talim, ed., op. cit. As Mustafa Nurul Islam writes, ‘[...] tinged with communalism, the Hindi-Urdu controversy finally became a political issue, Hindus identifying with Hindi and Musalmans with Urdu. Thus the advocacy of Urdu began partially to symbolise

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58

59

60 61

62

63

64

65 66

67

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Muslim nationalism’, Bengali Muslim Public Opinion as Reflected in the Bengali Press, 1901-1930, Bangla Academy, Dacca, 1973, p. 195, Footnote 49. Islamabadi, Manirazzaman, ‘Bangiya Musalman o Urdu Samasya’, Al-Eslam, Year 3, No.6, Aswin, BS 1324 (1917). Ali, Syed Emdad, ‘Banga Bhasa o Musalman’, Bangiya-Musalman-SahityaPatrika, Year 1, No.2, Sraban, BS 1325 (1918). Ahmed, Mozaffar, ‘Banga Deshe Madrassar Shiksha’, Bangiya-MusalmanSahitya-Patrika, Year 2, No.3, Kartik, BS 1326 (1919). Rahman, op. cit., p. 163. Earle to Government of Bengal, 10 June 1908, Para. 22, Bengal Education Proceedings, August 1908, quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 65. ‘Appendix A: List of Persons who attended the Muhammadan Educational Conference, held at Calcutta in December, 1907’, Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 295. Earle to Government of Bengal, 10 June 1908, Para. 12, Bengal Education Proceedings, August 1908, quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 66. This was echoed by Fazlul Haque’s statement in 1939 when, speaking at the Prize Distribution Ceremony at the Madrassa Alia, he said that the discrimination in matters of grants between the madrassas of the Old Scheme and the Reform Scheme was entirely unacceptable. Rahman, op. cit., p. 185. Around 17 new madrassas were established between 1922–1927, and around 30 between 1927–1932. These numbers vary slightly among the books or periodicals consulted. The other members of the committee were G W Kichler, Director of Public Instruction, Bengal, Dr Rash Behary Ghose, Advocate of the High Court, Calcutta, Nawab Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, Nawab Sirajul Islam, Ananda Chandra Roy, Pleader and Zaminder, Dacca, Mohammad Ali, Aligarh, H R James, Principal of Presidency College, Calcutta, W A T Archibald, Principal of Dacca College, Satis Chandra Acharji, Principal of Sanskrit College, Calcutta, Lalit Mohan Chatterjee, Principal, Jagannath College, Dacca, C W Peake, Professor Presidency College and Samsul Ulama Abu Nasr Muhammad Waheed, Superintendent of Dacca Madrassa.

The Lion Dance on the streets of Calcutta during the Chinese New Year celebrations. Photograph Courtesy: Saibal Das.

Chapter 6 THE CHINESE COMMUNITY OF CALCUTTA: AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL CHUNG

Sipra Mukherjee and Sarvani Gooptu The first Chinese immigrant to Calcutta wasYang Tai Chow. He arrived in 1778 on the banks of the Hooghly. He gathered together a group of Chinese, many of whom had jumped ship and decided to stay on in the area of Calcutta or were working on the Khidderpore docks. Yang started a sugar mill with the eventual goal of saving enough to start a tea trade. Though history has obliterated the sugar mill, Yang’s endeavour has been immortalized in the Bengali word for sugar, chini, which is derived from the Mandarin (similar to the Bengali word for porcelain, chinamati). Yang, known locally as Tong Achi, established the first Chinese community in the area which came to be known as Achipur, a place 33 km from Calcutta, near Budge Budge. The place no longer has any Chinese inhabitants but Yang Tai Chow’s grave, and a temple that he built, are still visited by the Calcutta Chinese at the time of the Chinese New Year to seek his blessings. Geographical proximity of the city to China and its accessibility by land made Calcutta the natural choice for many emigrating Chinese. The first record of modern Chinese immigration to India, writes Haraprasad Roy, can be found in a short notice in the Chinese book of 1820, A Maritime Record. It mentions the city of Calcutta as housing a small Chinese population from Fujian (Fukien) and Guangdong (Canton). These Chinese appear to have been in the opium business. A police record preserved in the public records of the Government of India dating back to 1788 indicates that a sizeable Chinese population settled near Bow Bazar Street. Generally sober and industrious, they occasionally got intoxicated and committed violent outrages against each other. Around 1830, a Chinese-born Vietnamese envoy named Li Van Phuc wrote of the hundreds of Chinese whom he met in Calcutta, though the police census of 1837 gives the

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figure as 362. Li describes the Chinese people as very poor, and also mentions the Chinese temple dedicated to Guan Yu, a historical figure of the Period of Three Kingdoms (AD 220–280) and one of the most popular deities worshipped among the merchants. We find a reference to this temple, located in the Chinese quarter in one of the lanes around Kasaitollah and Dharamtallah, in 1849, in the writing of the traveller C Alabaster. Alabaster reports that the Cantonese carpenters of Calcutta also had a temple in Bow Bazar dedicated to the Sea Goddess Tianhou (Heavenly Spouse), a deity generally worshipped by the seafarers. Calcutta’s enduring romance with Chinese food appears to have begun sometime after 1947. The Cantonese families fleeing Mao’s China opened their restaurants, the most famous of which was possibly Nanking. Many have become a part of Calcutta’s history, like Fat Mama, the subject of Rafeeq Ellias’ recent BBC World documentary which declined with the death of Fat Mama. But others, like Eau Chew on Ganesh Chandra Avenue which dates back to the 1930s, have survived, with its Chimney Soup still as popular. The breakfast bazaar at Territi Bazaar on Sun Yat Sen Street opens at 5 a.m. every day and is the only place in the country where you can taste Chinese cuisine as it survives in the kitchens of Calcutta’s Indian– Chinese families. The cuisine that has come to be known as Indian–Chinese has little and often no relation with traditional Chinese cuisine though, and Chilli Chicken and (Nelson Wang’s) Chicken Manchurian are entirely Indian–Chinese creations. The contribution of the Chinese community to the social and economic spheres of Calcutta through their restaurants, tanneries, laundries, beauty parlours has been felt by many to be disproportionately large compared to their population. The early Chinese were probably the Hakkas, greatly valued as sailors in Calcutta (and whose community name, which means ‘guests’, has survived in the Hakka noodles popular in the city). But through the generations, the Chinese have maintained their social distinctions in the field of their businesses, so that even today in Calcutta, the Hakka are the tanners and shoemakers, the Hupeh the dentists, the Cantonese the carpenters and restaurateurs, and the laundries the stronghold of the Shanghai group.

The Interview Mr Paul Chung, an Indian citizen of Chinese origin, born and brought up in Kolkata has been a teacher at the Don Bosco School, Liluah, and is now the dynamic President of the Indian Chinese Association. The interview begins with Mr Chung speaking of the coming Chinese New Year celebrations which they are organizing, the Year of the Pig.

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Paul Chung: We are organizing this with the help of sponsors in Calcutta who want the Chinese community to have this celebration. It comes from our sense of unity. The Chinese are people of one family. And since very few can reach the greater family, which is all of one’s clan, one tries to connect through this smaller community. The clan has traditionally been seen as needed for self-protection and self-preservation. Sipra Mukherjee and Sarvani Gooptu: So do you have a sort of hierarchy of power within your community? PC: Our hierarchy is of seniority. It is this way – the senior most member of the family is the superior. Our cultural structure is very simple. The males are the members of the family, the females are – right from the beginning – not considered members of the family they are born into. They belong to the family they get married into. This of course doesn’t mean that we neglect our daughters. The bond between parents and children cannot be like that. We bring a daughter up and educate her, but we know that she will go. The girl child does not belong to my family, – I am bringing her up for the husband’s family. SM & SG: Do you have divorces? PC: Divorce is there. But because divorce is not according to tradition, it is not a right. But it is there in the system. Say for example, one rule of the system is this. If you back-chat your mother-in-law, that’s a ground for divorce. That is why the Americans find the Chinese women very strange. Why do they always keep quiet when the mother-in-law is around! SM & SG: But is this dominance of the elders accepted everywhere? PC: Yes, it’s the tradition. See, the understanding of the Chinese family is this – the relationship between the offspring and the parent is known as filia-piety. It is not a family system where I love my parents and I obey my parents. Your parents are taken as gods. So the question of disagreement does not arise. It depends on the gods to be kind, to be understanding. SM & SG: But now youngsters are so rebellious... PC: But still when it comes to these issues, nobody rebels! Or sometimes it may also be like my case when I rebelled against a custom without knowing the full force of tradition. My Dad backed off. Though in the eyes of society that made him a weak person, I was spared the punishment. It is only now when I know the tradition that I can see I had been a stupid fellow without realizing it. But then I had been receiving Western education and did not realize the full weight of my rebellion. Among the Chinese, this kind of thing is understood, though not pronounced, – that you don’t treat your parents as parents. They are gods. We know that when they die they become gods, the protectors of your family. Our ancestors are the gods we worship.

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SM & SG: But were you ever in China? PC: I am born and brought up here. Those who are not born in China used to be sent back there at the age of five or seven. Then afterwards, when about seventeen or nineteen, they would return. SM & SG: But that didn’t happen in your case? PC: No, we stopped going because the Communists took over the country. They were hell bent on breaking that tradition. And they were right – because they wanted to establish the idea of an individual’s identity. They wanted to start a system, – a new system, – and the system which we had had was built on the traditions of thousands of years. So they would have to smash that. But in the course of smashing that identity – the family values, the loyalty – everything would have to go. And if you want to smash a tradition that is deep and powerful, you must smash it completely – otherwise it won’t be smashed. SM & SG: Do you think they have succeeded in doing that? PC: Now it’s come back! (Laughs) Now they have to accept it. But a certain equation has been worked out, – you don’t talk of tradition and the old values and we will not interfere unless you cross the line. There’s this understanding. So I don’t know exactly what is happening, – but I know that ancestor-worship is still prevalent. Though the Communists are totally against it, they too have families which continue the worship, – so outside they may be heroes, but at home they’re quite traditional, just like the Marxists in Bengal. SM & SG: But are you continuing the traditional customs in Calcutta? PC: Oh, Calcutta has one of the most conservative Chinese communities in South Asia. For example, the language we speak in Tangra is the purest in the world. Our Hakka is comprehensible to people all over the world. Others say it’s a wonder how we can still speak like people 50–60 years ago! When the Hakka people who are scattered all over Malaysia, Taiwan, Canada start conversing, it is we from Calcutta who have the purest language. Our local language influence is limited to two words – ‘accha’ and ‘aloo’. SM & SG: But how is that? How did you manage to avoid the influence? PC: We are a very conservative people. Moreover, in Calcutta, our business centres like the tanneries don’t depend on people from other communities. But now, things are changing because the Chinese are moving into many other trades, and this association with other people will slowly erode our purity. Just as my Western schooling, even without me realizing it, decreased the hold the Chinese tradition had on me. As I began to imbibe Western values, I began to see things logically. Once I remember I had a quarrel with my Dad. And at the end, when he tried to use his authority as my

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father, I replied, ‘You want me to obey you like this! Then when I’m not with you, I won’t do it!’ Because in my school, with its Western education, we were taught to discuss, to argue. The Western values are very different, you know. It’s a completely different way of thinking. My father possibly realized the difference and he didn’t mention it any more. It’s only now that I think, ‘My God. I must have killed him many times.’ SM & SG: But do you expect these values of loyalty and devotion from your next generation? PC: No. Now, we do still try to keep the established values and traditional ways of doing things, but only for certain occasions. Otherwise we are like the local people. When I was small, things were different. We were very traditional, and everybody had to obey the clan. The society was very strong in the sense that if anyone broke the rules, you’ve had it. SM & SG: And one of the spheres where rules are followed is marriage. Has anyone married against the rules, maybe say, outside the community? PC: They have, but we try to settle it socially. The marriage rules are essentially this – it’s the duty of the parents to get the children married, and it’s the duty of the parents to arrange for the same – it goes up to that, and beyond that is unthinkable. And nobody speaks about it. So the system is this, – if someone wants to get married to somebody, they must go to a matchmaker. Even if you’re in love, you usually go and tell your mother, so then the parent calls a matchmaker through whom the proposal is made. This is the inside story which need not be discussed in public, and even if you marry outside the community, you can go through the matchmaker. The matchmaker must be someone outside the family, it is almost like a profession for some, because the matchmaker will be paid something. But people of the immediate family don’t matchmake because it is believed that they would be biased, so that spoils your name in society, diminishes your social status, – people say the family is manipulating the proposals to get their child married. In fact, we are concerned about our Chinese traditional marriage customs dying out, so we have included a writing on it in the diary our Association brings out every year. The diary is in English, and through it we try to acquaint our young Chinese members with their traditional values and customs. Most of the Chinese children these days are educated in English-medium schools, and they often have a lot of questions on the Chinese customs. SM & SG: When did your family come to Calcutta? PC: In the early twentieth century. The first person to come was my grandfather. He was a shoemaker. My Dad was also a shoemaker, then he became a tanner. But when I came back from Don Bosco, I said I’m not going to go into the tannery. It is now managed by my brothers. My elder

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brother is there, my younger brother is there. I am the middle fellow, so somehow I have been allowed to go my way. SM & SG: Did your brothers also study in Don Bosco? PC: No, no! I was the first in the family to be given an English education. My brothers both studied in Tangra. We have our own schools there. The Chinese are very strong in education. But when you reach a certain level, it is considered enough. For most of the Chinese coming here, the education is to help them earn their own living, and then, to send the surplus earning back to China to help the family back home. So if you can read and write letters, know the rules and regulations, the laws, you can negotiate, – and that’s enough. By sending me to an English school, my father was going against the community’s unwritten rules. He too was a rebel, I guess. I didn’t realize that when I was a kid. Now the other family members tell me, ‘Your father was a rebel. He sent you to an English-medium school.’ And they had all tried to make him change his mind, but he had stood his ground. So he broke the tradition of the Chinese community. And for that he suffered. Without knowing it, I had made him suffer. These customs of obedience are well known in China, but I hadn’t known it. SM & SG: But did you study Chinese at all? PC: Yes, I finished my primary school. I was in my middle school when he plucked me out and put me in Don Bosco. I had a good memory and I did well, but after a lot of punishments from my cousin who was a teacher. I used to shout out loud and study, just like the Bengalis. SM & SG: So, what did you do after your education? PC: I joined a company. But that was 1966, and there was the War going on then. Soon the government didn’t allow us to work anymore. The only reason was that we were Chinese. In fact, the day the War broke out, I had my last Mechanical Engineering exam. We had trouble joining work. But somehow, I used my buddhi and got this job. But after two years, they sacked me. Then when I got myself another job, the government would not give me a permit to go and join. So I wrote a letter to Lal Bahadur Shastri. I wrote: ‘What is all this you say about India being a secular country where everyone gets an equal chance?! I am born and brought up in India, but I can’t even get a visa to go and join my job? I can’t earn my bread.’ Within ten days the visa office called me. ‘Why are you writing letters?’ they said. ‘Why shouldn’t I write!’ I said, ‘He’s an authority I can appeal to.’ I got my visa. SM & SG: So where did you go? Which country?

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PC: No other country. I got a job in a factory near Dumdum Airport. I needed a permit for that. When the War started, we were restricted to our house and locality and could not come out of Tangra. SM & SG: But did all Chinese at that time stay in Tangra? PC: No, they were scattered in many places of Calcutta. But to move out anywhere we would need permits. Looking at it now, it seems so stupid. Today, they don’t have either the moral or the physical force to restrict us like that. But the Chinese are such law-abiding citizens and there is this fear of ‘what’ll happen if we disobey’. Now, of course, we are citizens. But the problems carried on even after the War. I think it was finally in 1999 that this need for the work permit was withdrawn. Not that I faced too much of a problem. Since I was a teacher, I was given a lot of respect. If anything unpleasant happened, I would complain, and the offending chap would get a scolding: ‘Don’t you know he’s a teacher?’ In other words, it’s okay to harass non-teachers. Then I became the Assistant Principal of Don Bosco, Liluah, and after that there were very little problems. SM & SG: What about voting rights? PC: Now we have voting rights. After we were given citizenship, we got the voting rights. But not everyone was given the vote. I fought the case for a long time. I applied, and applied, and applied till they finally gave me citizenship. Now things are easier. But sometimes the intermediaries create problems. And most of the Chinese are not as bothered, or as knowledgeable. Even now some of them don’t know what lies across the road. I tell them, if you have any problem, write a letter to the Home Secretary. But they don’t want to get into trouble. Most of them are very gentle people. Our policy is very different, more so because we are from the Hakka community. Hakka means ‘guest’. In China too we are like guests. We came from Mongolia. When we come to a place, we try to adapt to the situation, and if it is too difficult we move on. SM & SG: Where is the migration taking place? PC: Canada. Because there they are getting what most of them are missing here. The basic need of freedom. They can choose their work. The first advantage of other countries over India is that the harassment is less, the bureaucracy is less. The Chinese are a hardworking people. That is our one big advantage. One of my non-Chinese students who’d gone to Australia told me, ‘These Chinese buggers – (no disrespect to you, he said) they work three shifts! And when they come home, they stay in their homes, they don’t spend

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the money. So what we save in three years, they save in one.’ But of course, now the psychology of migration has changed. My Dad came to India to make business, save money, and go back to buy more land in China. But after the Communists took it away, he could no longer go back. The Communists also gave him a title – Exploiter of the People. So if he went back, they would skin him. He was an honest man, and he wasn’t involved in any politics. Actually, the system itself was exploitative. He too used to work 16–18 hours a day just to make some extra money. That was forced on him. But either way, he could not go back any more. SM & SG: Tell us something about the women in your community. PC: In the Hakka community they are like men. There is a saying in Hakka, that the Hakka girls are women with large feet. There are no restrictions on them. SM & SG: Does that also mean that their feet were never bound? PC: Those were the Manchurian women. The Manchurians were the ruling class then. And if the ruling class follows a practice, it gets imitated by the lower orders. SM & SG: Are most of the Chinese in Calcutta Hakka? PC: Most of the Chinese in Tangra are Hakka. But the Chinese in China Town are mostly Cantonese. There are others from other communities too. The Cantonese are skilled people – carpenters, engineers. The Hakkas are the unskilled people. Their primary aim, if I may say so, is to earn a living. So when they came to India, they picked up shoemaking. The leather was something nobody touched here. So the major group here is my group. We’re also Han Chinese. Then there are the Mongolians, Manchurians and Tibetans. The girls usually study further than the boys. Earlier, most of them would become secretaries. They were very hardworking. So the bosses used to say that one Chinese girl is worth three secretaries. Now many of them work in beauty parlours and offices. No job is looked down upon. So wherever the girls see an opportunity, they will go and work. In fact, if there is a divorce case, then the question will always be asked, ‘Has the girl contributed to the family?’ If she has, then the divorce cannot take place against her wishes. In our culture, you are not only a partner of your husband, you are married into the family. So when a Chinese girl gets married, the groom’s family does not get a dowry. The father has brought her up for the groom’s family, and now when she goes into that family, her father’s family will lose that income or help which used to come from her. So the groom’s family has to give the dowry. Usually, the practice is to give the bride’s family some money in a red packet. Maybe the groom’s

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family agrees to give the costs of the wedding or something. Just to thank the father of the bride. SM & SG: Tell us something about your festivals. PC: The festival that’s coming up is the New Year. In China, this is a 25day celebration. On New Year, the gods bless you for the coming year according to your deeds of the last year. The belief is that God calls your Kitchen God and asks about you. So for ten days before the New Year’s Day, we have a lot of celebrations. A kind of sweet, like your rasagollas, are made with sticky rice. This is made so that the Kitchen God will have all the sweetness of these riceballs sticking to his tongue and won’t be able to say anything bad about you. He’ll say only sweet things. After the New Year, we have family celebrations. On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gets together and gambles and celebrates late into the night. We have the Moon Festival, the Dragon Festival. In fact, there are a lot of similarities between your Bengali celebrations and ours. Between your culture and ours. Like for example, you don’t say ‘Bye bye’, you say, ‘Ashchhi’. We also say the Chinese for ‘See you again’. Then in most Western cultures, they are very vague about the relationships. Many different relatives will be called Uncle or Aunt. The Chinese are very clear. We have about 57 distinct family relationships. But like your Bengali families, the Chinese families are also becoming nuclear. Earlier, there would be many brothers and sisters. But now with the government measures, families have become very small. SM & SG: But not much marrying with the local people of Bengal? PC: Not much, but there are some. My second youngest daughter has married a Bengali Hindu. They worked in the same bank. It was okay with me. If you can stay together, and adjust to each other’s cultures, the marriage will be a success. But such marriages are few. That is because the Chinese are largely a closed community, so there is little exposure to the locals. Then there is always this ‘special’ thing about our features – the eyes, the nose, etc. And that feeling of difference is present on both sides. When I came back from the English-medium school, I went back to my earlier school for three months before I joined Intermediate School. My friends would call me a ‘traitor’. We were about 12 or 13 then, and for a child of that age, it is very painful. I suffered a lot. And today, almost all the youngsters are students of English-medium schools! The Chinese language is needed by the mainstream offices now for trade and business. So we teach non-Chinese students during the weekend at Sacred Heart Chinese School. We have also started teaching Mandarin Chinese in an institute. There is a lot of demand for Chinese in the job

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market. That’s why I tell the young, – since you are citizens of this country, you have to contribute in some way, so if you can teach this language, then do that. Otherwise, these institutes will be going to China to get their Indian teachers trained. But, the spoken Chinese language has distinct intonations and accents which are difficult for an Indian to learn in three months. We are used to conversing in Chinese, so we know the language. In fact, there is already a reaction against the Calcutta Chinese teaching the language. If we join as teachers, then the competition for the Bengali teachers teaching the Chinese language becomes very stiff. And at the moment, this is a very lucrative career. SM & SG: How do you think your ‘different’ education has influenced you? PC: Yes, that always has an influence. Since I was outside, I could see the reality of our Calcutta community clearly. If I had been inside, I wouldn’t have been able to judge objectively. So many of our community lack exposure to the wider world and therefore have a narrow view of the mainstream culture. This is often a negative view, – that of being exploited because we are a minority. But I’ve dealt with many from the mainstream and know them well. I can recognize that this negative view is born out of insularity and lack of knowledge about the others. Moreover, I have been a teacher, which is always a position of respect in this state. Now though the younger generation is moving into the mainstream. From our Association we also support a few of the youth and help them get jobs in the mainstream corporate offices, call centres etc. Some get jobs in Calcutta, others go to Pune, Delhi, all over the country. There is a lot of talent here, so we have to use that.

‘The swimming pool at a British Club,’ Calcutta, 1944, photograph by Frank Bond. Photograph Courtesy: Bond Photo Library, University of Chicago, The Digital South Asia Library.

Chapter 7 THE ANGLO-INDIANS OF CALCUTTA: AN INTERVIEW WITH RUDOLPH L RODRIGUES

Nandini Bhattacharya The Anglo-Indian community has been most visible in the schools and offices of Calcutta. During the colonial age, viewed by the colonizers either as bulwarks of the colonial elites, or as lurking threats to their power, they were subject to a ‘frequently shifting set of criteria that allowed them privilege at certain historical moments and pointedly excluded them at others’.1 Scholars have argued that, with the growth of ‘scientific racism’ in nineteenth century Europe, a transformation occurred in the relationships between the British rulers and the Anglo-Indians – ‘the “hybrid” became a trope for moral failure and degeneration, and led to the increasingly negative evaluation and status abasement of Anglo-Indians by British elites in India’. The introduction of technologically modern areas of occupation like the railways and telegraph in India gave the AngloIndians a specific social niche of their own. Many of them found jobs in these industries which were entirely new and therefore, unlike almost all other professions practised in India, had no caste identified with it. Their awareness ‘of themselves as distinct from the surrounding Indian population, with a common language (English) and a common religion (Christianity), as well as other shared cultural attributes’2 encouraged them to keep themselves to the central parts of the city, where the schools and churches were. In recent years, though, the rising real estate prices have compelled them to move to outlying suburbs of the city, like the Andul and Metiabruz areas. Though the emigration of Anglo-Indians began during the colonial Raj, the numbers greatly increased after its end, with a great many emigrating to Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada. The issue of emigration is of extreme significance today in

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the community of Calcutta. The considerably reduced community remaining in India is mainly concentrated in the eastern and southern cities like Calcutta and Chennai. Harry MacLure, who lives in Chennai and publishes a community magazine, estimates the total number of AngloIndians in India today to be approximately 100,000.3 The most important address of this and of many other minority communities of the city is Bow Barracks where 132 families of the Anglo-Indian community live. Yet, in recent years, the waves of migration appear to be declining, and as the economy ‘opens up’ with globalization, the Anglo-Indian youth are finding employment in the hospitality industries. Naturally proficient in English, they are preferred in hotels and airlines, and many are moving on to own restaurants and beauty parlours. Bollywood pop has proved to be an easy unifier as the youth move out into mixed neighbourhoods, dating outside the community and celebrating Hindu festivals. As Barry O’Brien, a famous Calcuttan says, ‘We are imbibing local cultures, and local cultures are imbibing ours. The Anglo-Indian is happy to be a part of the new India.’4 Professor Roderigues, who uses Bangla idioms and phrases with ease as he talks about his community, has been a teacher of International Relations in Jadavpur University in the city. Nominated as a Member of Parliament for the sixth Lok Sabha, his life embodies the political enthusiasm and intellectual restlessness that is often recognized as being part of the Calcutta culture.

The Interview Nandini Bhattacharya: You have been in Calcutta since birth. Could you tell us something about your childhood? Rudolph L Rodrigues: Yes, I am born in Calcutta, and as you say in Bangla, ‘Ami to ei matir i manush’ (I am a son of the soil). Most of my upbringing was in North Calcutta – which is the real Calcutta. I grew up in Belgachhia, studied in Calcutta Boys’ School, and went on to teach there. I grew up among friends who came from other communities and whom I never thought to be different from me in any way. That thought never entered my mind. When I was about sixteen and a half, I started my working career as a teacher. NB: Sixteen and a half? RLR: Yes. And there was a boy in my class who was 18. In those days that was possible. Today, there are age bars, but there was none then. I went for further studies. During my higher studies I lived in a place called Beni Ghosh Bylane, off Beadon Street near the Scottish Church area, Hedua.

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So, that was once again old Calcutta. My friends were mostly from outside the Anglo-Indian community, but I never felt any differences. I had said the same things in the interview with Hindustan Times. They wanted to know how I felt as a minority. I told them that I have to pinch myself to be reminded that I really belong to a minority, – to a community which is really small. I don’t think you can even call me cross-cultural, because that implies a movement from one culture to another, – you are bridging it. I am hardly conscious of the fact that I am within two cultures. My father spoke Bangla better than I do. He worked in the Tramways. NB: You were involved in politics? RLR: Yes. I had got involved in political activities – something very Calcuttan. Strangely, that was the first time that I really became conscious of my own people, the Anglo-Indians, as my own community. Of course, everyone said my joining politics was very unusual. An Anglo-Indian and politics?! You see, I am not talking of a mere nomination, but actual politics. I was a member of VSP, the Vraja Socialist Party, Jayprakash Narayan’s Party. I was hyper-active, and used to campaign. I was elected. I remember sitting on the grass in Hazra Park when I was selected as the President of the All Bengal Socialist Students! It’s true that compared to the others, I had an unusual background, but nobody really treated me as different, – possibly because I didn’t stick out as someone who didn’t belong. And I was happy about that. So, my community was sort of my personal background. NB: You did not have any problems being a part of mainstream Calcutta? RLR: No problems. Not just Calcutta, I think Bengal itself is different from the other states in many ways, – and I have some theories on why this particular city is so different. You see, Calcutta was earlier the capital of India. So, it has been one of the most cosmopolitan cities in India for many years, and still is. It is a great mixture of people coming from all over the world and other parts of India as well. So the consciousness that divides people caste-wise or pradesh-wise is not present in as acute a form here as it is in some other parts of India. The other reason is possibly that the more ‘intellectual’ a people are, the less caste-conscious they will be. There must have been some truth in the belief that our Paschim Bangla is the intellectual capital of India: what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. The universities, the coffee houses, – the intellectual temper of the city has always been so evident! Also we’ve had a very strong revolutionary movement in Bengal. The earliest nationalist revolutionaries were here – and revolutionaries are not conscious of divisions on the basis of caste, colour or creed. Another factor

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why we are less divisive than other parts of India would be the legacy of Socialism that has become almost a part of the city. As a little boy, I used to dream that our country and people would lead the world. I still believe in that dream. Hearing this, my political colleagues used to say, ‘mathay chhit achhe’ (something is wrong with his head). There is everything here, but it is this divisiveness that has spoiled us. Continuation of the caste system through reservations has added to this. When the constituent assembly was meeting to make the constitution, Ambedkar wanted abolition of the caste system. Complete abolition. But Mahatma Gandhi didn’t. He wanted the amelioration of the downtrodden, therefore making it possible to perpetuate the caste divisions. The best way to do away with the divisions is what Mayavati is doing now! No person is going to get a concession or financial benefit for belonging to a caste, but will get one if s/he is economically backward. That’s the criterion. There are divisions within the Christian community too, and to diminish its ill effects, we began what we called the Tea War. Say, for example, in this office, we have six people coming from six different Christian backgrounds. As you have the Shias and Sunnis, we also have lots of divisions. And deliberately, by policy, every now and then, we all sit together and eat. It’s not a crosscultural attempt, nor an attempt to bridge the divide. The bridge was always there, but you are conscious of the tag that holds the two sides of the bridge. Perhaps the reason lies in our mixed origins as well. We were born out of intermarriage. So inter-cultural mixing is a natural feature of our community. I too married outside my community. My wife is from Delhi, she speaks Hindi. Intermarriage is natural, and means that there are fewer divisions within our minds. NB: You have been so much more involved in politics than the Anglo-Indian community usually is. How did the others take it? RLR: In the words of one of my school masters, I am an Eskimo in Africa. Yet strangely, they had said something which I felt was wrong at that time, but it has emerged in the long run as somewhat true. I was involved in active politics but not in community politics. My community was steadily heading downhill. Then, one day I got an appeal from some non-AngloIndian neighbours – What are you doing?! You are doing national politics but your own community is going down. I had said that I did not think myself as an Anglo-Indian only. But they disagreed and told me that I should help them also. Then, some of the young in my community got together and elected me leader. But there was an Opposition too – and the main objection that they had against me was that I did not belong to the community. Possibly they felt that this man who does not smoke or drink – I only drink what the fish drinks –, does not go to a party, and is

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actually involved in mainstream politics, is too different from us AngloIndians to lead our community. NB: Would you agree with the view that no community should be treated separately or differently from the others? RLR: My view is, if you love the country, you love everybody in the country, including the Anglo-Indian community. To find ways to improve the lot of only one particular community is not my policy. NB: How would you define the evolution of Anglo-Indian community in Calcutta? They were a very visible presence at one time, especially in schools. But now they are no more as vibrant a presence. RLR: To answer your question we need to look at two different aspects. The first aspect, as I told you at the beginning, is that the Anglo-Indian community, like other minority communities, has certain features typical of a minority community. If I look at the situation objectively, I feel that a minority group will have some characteristic features, but an Indian minority should also have traits that make it Indian. These two sets of features are likely to be distinctly different. Now, what are the traits that make us Indian? And this I feel was one outstanding trait, which no other community in this country had – usually people think of themselves as ‘Amra Bangali’ or ‘Bihari’ or ‘Kashmiri’ – the Anglo-Indians would be more likely to look upon India as their home, and not Calcutta. So that was an asset. This feeling came partly because the Anglo-Indians got special benefits as a minority. Also because they were in positions which controlled the infrastructure on which the country was run – the railways, post offices, almost everything was manned by them. When I went to Delhi even as late as in 1970–1972, among the operational Air Marshalls and Vice Air Marshalls, 15 out of 70 would be Anglo-Indians. The Vice Chief of Staff was an Anglo-Indian. As far as the national infrastructure was concerned, we were assets. But not many were academically inclined, our social life being distinctly one that placed a high value on dancing, music and club life. So, in the new set up that came after Independence, we could not expect to hold the same clout. Also, the special reservations were withdrawn. I did argue for reservations for my community then. My opinion was that the quotas should be retained for some more time, and then phased out gradually. I had felt that this would give the Anglo-Indians time to stand on their feet. Say, after every five years, if there is a 20 per cent reservation in the Railways at a certain level, you make it 15 per cent and then 10 per cent. I still feel that if that had been done, then the community would not have suddenly lost their jobs. Hence, immigrations, and all those ‘vibrant’ people whom you remember, – off they went. Today, we have only over 20,000 of them in the city; at the peak we had 400,000.

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Many also went abroad because they felt a sense of loyalty to the colonial rulers. I remember Gandhi, when he spoke in the Park Circus Maidan, – it was in 1946 – something that I will never forget. I don’t remember the context, but he said – I don’t know why – that this Anglo-Indian community, if it really wanted to, could have been the leaders of the country. If I try to understand the rationale of that statement, I could perhaps say that if you look at all the revolutions that have occurred in places like Latin America, leadership has come mostly from mixed communities. Perhaps Gandhi recognized that the Anglo-Indian had an all-India attitude, not a parochial one. Also, many of us controlled educational institutions and education is one of the main areas of power. We were the ones fluent in English. One may not like it, but English was the language that held India together at that time. Also, you could depend on us for continuous service. Everybody else other than us go on strikes. It is not that s/he doesn’t support the cause, but we have an attitude, and I think it is a correct attitude, – win your battles without strikes. Striking as a last resort is fine, but as a first resort it means you are a shirker. When I became the President of the student body of Calcutta University, the first rule I made was – ‘No Strikes’. Looking back at all these plus points, I can only regret that the potential displayed by the Anglo-Indians has not been achieved. We could have done a lot, – we could have. Even now, there are places where you get a regional kind of favour. People prefer to employ the Anglo-Indian because they know that the work will be done. But, of course, if you employ an Anglo-Indian who is into club-life, then chances are you won’t find him at work most of the days. We have that great division. It’s not a class division, but one of upbringing. Some prefer work, some partying. NB: Are you saying that there are two kinds in your community? RLR: No! All are the party-going kind. The whole community, except odd members like myself, are inclined to social life. In that set up, you also have people who are Mr Dependable. And that’s an asset. NB: What do you feel about the migrations that are taking place among the youth today? RLR: Yes, most are trying to go abroad as soon as possible. The consequence is that, when they go for interviews here, the employers are not confident about employing them. I tell my people – I give you a job and two years later, you emigrate! What happens to the organization then? Very often the interviewer is aware that the Anglo-Indian may not be here long. But this was true till about fifteen years ago. Now, things are changing, because the interviewer himself is planning, ‘How am I going to emigrate to America?’ The same stupid weakness that was in our community. This

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is no longer a problem among the Anglo-Indian youth only! The influence is not limited to a fascination with the West alone, even the forte of the community – dancing – has touched first the Sindhis, then the Punjabis, and now our own Bengali boys have picked it up. I can say this openly, that instead of us learning the right things from the rest of India, the rest have learnt the wrong things from us! When you imitate or worship anybody, sooner or later you end up with the same problems. The more the club life has become a part of the lifestyle of not just Anglo-Indians but other communities of Calcutta as well, the divorce rate has gone up. This does not mean that divorce is necessarily wrong. In my community we had outstanding men at different levels. We also had outstanding criminals! There was this chap called Pinto – a Bengali book had been written on him too – Pinto Saheb – he was a wizard at opening locks! We have all kinds of fellows including some great men and women who have served our country. NB: You are into community service now? RLR: Yes, we run a guest house here, which is also a centre for the poor. The place was running at a loss when I came in, but now we’ve successfully made a profit of 60 lakhs. We have had the buildings recently painted, new buildings are coming up. There is a very old saying – if you want to do anything successfully in life, you must have two things – clean hands and straight eyes. That’s it. NB: Tell us something about the women of the Anglo-Indian community. They’re very special since they were India’s first professional women. RLR: Women are always better in most communities. NB: They were the first working women of Bengal. RLR: Very true. They make very good teachers, nurses and secretaries. I’m sure that they make very good wives too! NB: One more question. Does the Anglo-Indian community feel that they had been wronged in any way? RLR: Some do feel wronged, but I would argue that their feelings are based on incorrect reasoning. There is a fellow who lives down my street. He has no income, so some people from my community have made provisions for his diverse needs. But now, he thinks that it is his right! And he behaves in that manner. He fires at the person who brings him his food if it is not as warm as it should be! So, I think everybody has to earn their way, otherwise you do not appreciate what you get. If some of my community believe that they have been wronged because at one time they had jobs which are no longer open to them alone, I think there is some problem in their thinking. One comment has stayed with me – it has taken the Anglo-Indian community a hundred and fifty years or more to

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realize that they are really Indians; now, if it takes the other communities slightly more time to accept that, don’t be surprised. I think there’s a lot of truth in this.

NOTES 1

2

3

4

Stoler, A L, ‘Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1989, pp. 134–61. Caplan, Lionel, ‘Colonial and Postcolonial Hybridities: Eurasians in India’, IIAS Newsletter No. 30, Research and Reports, Research: South Asia, International Institute for Asian Studies, March 2003. Biswas, Soutik, ‘Anglo-Indians Defy Stereotypes’, BBC News, Calcutta, 12 August 2007. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6932623.stm], accessed on 10 November 2007. Ibid.

‘Early morning Park Street.’ Breakfast available on the roads was imperative for the upcountry single male who migrated to Calcutta in search of jobs. Photograph Courtesy: Claude Waddell, South Asia Collection, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania.

Chapter 8 THE BIHARIS OF CALCUTTA: AN INTERVIEW WITH SACHCHIDAND AND INDU RAI

Sipra Mukherjee The Biharis have been part of Calcutta since the last few centuries. The three states of Bihar, Orissa and Bengal comprised what was in the nineteenth century rather officiously called ‘Greater Bengal’. With both the geographical proximity and the absence of any geological barriers encouraging movement of people among these states, migration to the city of Calcutta has been a regular phenomenon. Interestingly, though the term ‘Bihari’ predates the recent division of the larger state of Bihar, the term was generally not used to refer to people from areas which today are included in the Jharkhand state. The cities and towns of the modern state of Jharkhand – Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur, Maithan, Ranchi, are viewed by most Calcuttans as being familiar enough to be mistaken for towns of Bengal. It has been the people from the districts of Monghyr, Katihar, Purnea, Bhagalpur, Saran (with its subdivision of Chhapra) who have always been identified as the ‘real’ Biharis. Though the image of the Bihari migrant is often of one who is among the poorest, this may not always reflect reality. Much of the rural–urban migration, as other researches in South Asia and Africa has also shown, is of a circular character. Almost all the Bihari migrants continue to maintain links with their areas of origin in rural Bihar. In the southern African context, or colonial India, this has been attributed to policies that restrict the settlement of migrants with their families. But many studies also show how this circulation is part of rural households’ strategies to maintain or improve their livelihood, how work in cities help them to keep their small plot of land, to ‘invest in agriculture’ as a Bihari migrant in Calcutta put it, and sometimes moderately improve their situation.’1

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Though a large number of the Bihari migrant population started out as manual labourers in the city, through their hard work and thrifty habits, many have now moved up the social ladder to join the snobbish Bengali babus. During our research, we came across Bihari bureaucrats, doctors, engineers and professors in the city of Calcutta. A larger number are familiar faces in the business circuit of the city. Most of them have an entrepreneurial spirit and will open up anything from a small, street-side paan shop to more impressively housed business establishments. The local ‘ironing man’, the barber who obliges his long line of customers, the new grocery-shop owner or the new franchisee of the giant burger chain are the different guises in which the Bihari entrepreneur may be found. With the present social scenario of Bihar presenting a disappointing picture, more and more Biharis are heading out of the state. Figures available with the Patna passport office indicate that there has been a 55 per cent growth in the number of passport-seekers in Bihar. In October 2006, The Telegraph reported that the Patna office created a record of sorts when they issued 12,574 passports in a single month.2 With their Chhatt Puja and brightly coloured saris, the women of Bihar are a distinctive part of Calcutta culture. The innumerable cars and lorries which carry the brightly dressed women to the Ganges is a familiar sight on the streets in the month after Diwali. The setting sun is worshipped, thousands of lamps are lit along the river, and the holy prasad distributed to all neighbours and friends, no matter how distant they may be. Sachchidanand Rai, whom we have interviewed, is a curious mixture of the urban and the rural. He is at the same time a Calcuttan, having been in the city since a five-year-old and made the city his home, and a Bihari, because his connections with the Chhapra district draw him back to his village every year or so. The story of his father, who was the first in his family to migrate out of Bihar, leaving the ancestral zamin, concretizes Arjan de Haan’s findings: […] empirical studies show that migration reduces the uncertainty of a family income, provides investment funds, and livelihoods for those with small plots. My research on Bihari migrants in Calcutta showed that income from migration has for generations provided an inseparable part of households that remain based in rural areas. Even though poor households have less access to opportunities, income from migration may form a more important part of their income than that of the better-off…3

This interview proved lucky because I was able to get Indu Rai, Sachchidanand’s wife from Uttar Pradesh, to answer a few questions on

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the Chhatt Puja, which had just passed, and on their village to which they were planning a visit on account of a family wedding.

The Interview Sachchidanand Rai has been a resident of Calcutta since childhood, except for a brief span which he spent in Bihar. Indu Rai came to live in Calcutta after her marriage to Sachchidanand. We were fortunate to include in our interview a friend of Sachchidanand, Mr Bheem Shaw, another Bihari now resident of the city. The interview begins with Indu Rai discussing the coming wedding in the family. The conversation was in a mixture of Hindi and English, which I have translated into English as best as I could. However, some Hindi/Bihari phrases have been left unchanged to retain the inimitable flavour of the Bihari milieu. Sipra Mukherjee: Has there been any change in the way weddings are done since the time you got married? Indu Rai: Oh, a lot has changed. In our times, nobody could see the bride. We had the purdah system – there would be partitions made of bed sheets or blankets or some such thing. On the aangan, the purdah would be fixed. All the gents would be on one side, and the ladies on the other. Nobody could see where the bride was, let alone her face. And of course, there would also be the ghunghat-vunghat covering our heads and faces. But now, times have changed. Even the village people have become smart. Before my marriage, nobody saw me. And after my marriage, only the women of the village could see me. SM: But before the wedding, didn’t Sachchida’s parents go to see you? IR: (with visible pride) No. Nobody saw me. My chachi was the one who brought the contact. I used to live in the village. It was chachi who met his family, and finalized the marriage. But nobody saw me. SM: Your village is in Bihar too? In the Chhapra district? IR: No, I am from Uttar Pradesh, from near Benaras – about two to two and half hours from the city. He is from Bihar. That is why our languages are a little different. Their words and inflections are different. Here in the city the difference is not much, but in the village the difference of language is more noticeable. Now that we are going to the village, lots of arrangements have to be made for the wedding, – arranging for generators and all. In our Bihar village, the poverty is tremendous. Light-vight kuchh nahi hai. Even now, there is no electricity. They can hardly manage food, what will they do with electricity? About six or seven kilometres away, there is electricity, but our village is too poor. So the villagers can’t afford it. They earn a meagre amount of Rs 1,000–2,000 every month – naturally

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they have to spend that on food. So, there is a lot of theft and robbery. Then there are the drunkards, – they’ll cut off the wires and sell them, – so who’s going to spend on electricity? SM: But what about security? You are planning a wedding in the village soon. There is bound to be a lot of gold jewellery. Aren’t you afraid of dacoits? IR: Yes, we are. That’s why we have arranged for security guards. They will be a part of the functions till the day we return. But we will not be carrying much real gold. You can’t wear all these gold bangles and stuff. If we do take a few, – to wear them when the baraat comes or something, – we have to keep them very very carefully. Hide them under the bed or in kitchen containers under the rice and dal. In fact, that is how most villagers keep their jewellery. The villagers don’t have almirahs and all, – and most villagers don’t wear any jewellery – chori ho jai ga. Maximum a small ear stud or something. SM: But where do the villagers keep their money? In banks? IR: Where is the money that they will keep? Villagers don’t have any money. Most of them are poor. Most families have some son or relative who works in the city – he sends them a few thousands. That they use for food. There are hardly any crops also very few farms. In my UP hometown, there were lots of fields. So the people could earn through their crops. Rice, wheat would be grown on our own farms only. We didn’t have to go to the market to buy them. SM: Did you come to Calcutta for the first time after your marriage? IR: No, I used to come earlier with my relatives. We had relatives staying in Howrah. So during the school holidays, we visited Calcutta sometimes. I was the first girl in my village to go to school. My didis and cousins – nobody had studied in schools before me. I was the first to come outside the home. This was because of my father’s contacts with the city people. My father knew many important people – and they would come to our house. I used to go to our small village school by rickshaw usually, otherwise by jeep. School was about two or two and half kilometres away. SM: Would your brothers go to school? IR: Yes, my brothers are all well-educated. They used to be sent off to the bigger schools of Baliya or some even to Calcutta for their studies. My eldest brother is a doctor and my youngest brother an engineer. Only one of my brothers studied in the village school, and I would go to school with him. I would not be allowed to go to school alone. We were eight sisters all together. I had five sisters and my uncle had three daughters. The youngest daughter of my uncle also would go to school with me. Nobody studies in the villages. People talk so much – this one’s daughter goes out

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of the house everyday, that one’s daughter was talking to this person, and then there’s a problem getting them married. Too much trouble. SM: Is the situation still the same there? IR: No, times have changed a lot. When I go to UP now, I see there is a lot of change. In Bihar also there is some change. The boys all go to school on bicycles. But not the girls. Though some of them get educated, they get their education at home. Then they may appear for the examinations as private candidates. Their brothers or fathers collect the forms from schools, and the girls fill up the forms and appear for the exam. Some of the girls who live near Chhabra, or near some college or school, may go. But the majority don’t. If they go, people will complain. They will talk about the girl’s character. So naturally if they don’t study, their families marry them off quickly. In the villages, it’s still ‘girls don’t do this’, ‘girls don’t do that’. SM: But what do you do when you take your daughters? Don’t they feel ill at ease? IR: They hate going. They won’t stay for more than two or three days. They haven’t been there for the last six years. Before that, they were too small to have opinions. SM: So, when you go to the village for this wedding, there must be a lot of curiosity about you. Do people come to see you? IR: Yes. The village people will all come to see us. They will ask lots of questions about the girl, the girl’s family, who the groom is, what he does, what gifts we are giving. These are big occasions in the village and everybody joins in. Since the wedding is taking place in the village, all distant relatives also come. It will be a huge affair. About 600–50 people will be going there for the wedding – all our aunts, cousins, sisters-in-law, friends, all of us together. We have to go and do the tilak at the groom’s place. He’s a good boy. An engineer, he works in Delhi. SM: So, what will you do when you search for a husband for your daughter? IR: We have begun looking for my eldest daughter. She’s 22 now. If she wants to study, she can study for two years more. We will look for one from within our own community and caste. Apna Bihar ka hona chahiye. If his family is originally from our area, then all the better, but he must be a Brahmin. We are Bhumiyar Brahmins, we are of the highest caste. After us is the plain Brahmin. The caste hierarchy should be maintained. The groom may be working and settled abroad, but we can’t disobey caste rules. There may be differences in culture among Biharis from different states, but those can be managed. SM: You mean in the way traditions are followed?

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IR: Yes. For example, we have the Chhatt Puja coming. This is mainly performed in Bihar, but it used to be performed in UP too, though differently. My mother started it there. Everybody can’t do the Chhatt Puja. When a woman is pregnant, she can perform the puja. After that, if she has a boy child, then she can continue with the puja, otherwise she must stop. It is called ‘keeping the Chhatt’. SM: What is the meaning of ‘Chhatt’? IR: Chhatt is the sixth day of the Kartik month. We worship the Sun God in the morning and evening. We also worship Vishnu Bhagwan. SM: Do you perform the puja alone, or is it a more collective affair, along with relatives? IR: You can do the puja alone, if you know the correct procedure. I did it with my mother-in-law a few times, and learnt the customs of the family. Now that I have learnt all the rituals and customs, sometimes I do it alone, because after leaving Howrah and coming to this part of Calcutta (their house is now in the Space Town housing complex on VIP Road), most of our relatives live far away. So it is difficult to get together with them for the Chhatt Puja. Earlier, in Howrah, all of us sisters-in-law would do it together. There would also be many relatives and neighbours belonging to our community who would join in. But after shifting, I have sometimes done it alone. My daughters can’t join me in this. They will be going to another family. Whether they will do the puja or not will depend on their in-laws. But my daughter-in-law will do it when my son gets married, because we have this tradition in our family. I will heave to teach her how to continue the tradition, just as my mother-in-law taught me. SM: You keep some other vrats too? IR: Yes, on Thursdays I keep Lakshmiji’s vrat. There are books one has to read which tell you what to do, what you will get if you are devoted – how you will be blessed with sons, with wealth. On Tuesdays I keep Hanumanji’s vrat. I read the Hanuman Chalisa and the Durga Chalisa.Today you had said you would come, so I finished my puja early. Tuesdays and Saturdays are Hanumanji’s vrat days. Then there are days for Shankar Bhagwan, for Vishnu Bhagwan. Wednesday is Ganeshji’s day. If somebody keeps manat – that I will worship the god for this particular reason, then they can keep a vrat. (The interview continues with Sachchidanad Rai and his friend, Mr Bheem Shaw.) SM: I remember you had a friend whom you would sometimes call Jaiswal and sometimes Shaw. Could you explain this? Are these passed on hereditarily? Sachchidanad Rai: Shaw and Jaiswal are actually the same. They are UP

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Brahmins. In the modern system, we say Jaiswal, Gupta etc. The oldfashioned still use Shaw. SM: But how do you choose? Bheem Shaw: (laughing) It’s like this. If Shaw-ji studies a little and becomes modern, he prefers to call himself Jaiswal. Those who are seen as having succeeded in life may call themselves Jaiswal or Gupta. SM: But much earlier, say two or three generations earlier, when the family would be called Shaw, did they have any connection with the name Jaiswal? Or is Jaiswal a new creation? SR: They were known as the Jaiswal community. The Jaiswal community was there but not the surname. The names Jaiswal, Agarwal, are all names of particular communities or castes. So the Agarwal community would have been known by their village names such as Rampuria, Manpuria, etc. They have four groups – Agarwals, Oswals, the Jains and the Maheshwars. BS: In the Shaw community too, there are seven different groups. The Shaws are the Baniyas. We belong to the fifth grade, but our higher status is not obvious since everybody writes Shaw. The Teli caste also uses Shaw. This seemed to be a problem to some. So some of us decided to call ourselves Jaiswal. SM: So that means that you can’t just decide to pick up any surname you want. There are social pressures which guide you to the available ones. BS: Yes. Only the respected castes may use some surnames. Gupta or Jaiswal are names that carry weight. If you go to your client and give your name as Jaiswal, you will immediately be shown respect. So those who used to have Shaw earlier may now be using Jaiswal, because they felt it did not carry enough weight. It is like the languages we use. If you can speak only Hindi, you get some respect. But if you can add some sentences in fluent English at times, you immediately get more respect. SM: Tell me something about your background – when did your father come here, when did he bring his family? SR: My father was the first in our family to go outside Bihar. He came here in 1938. He did go back for some time after about 28–30 years of living here, but that was because he went through a particularly tough time then, and he returned again. SM: But isn’t it strange that even after staying in a city for about 30 years, he had to go back to Bihar when he faced a financial crunch? SR: No. You have to understand that the mentality is different here. The many people who migrated from Bihar were all at heart rooted in Bihar, even more so in the agricultural milieu. They did not come here to settle

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down. They came so that they could earn and send the money back home. They were all in reality ksheti-walis. Their heart was in the land that they had left behind. And when my father brought my mother along, my grandmother cursed him. She followed them to the border of the village, cursing her son because he was doing dharm-naash – taking the woman of the house to the city. This was 1940s’ Calcutta. My father had joined the police. When in 1942 the Quit India happened, there was some jhamela and he left the police force. At that time, if you searched the whole of Calcutta, you would find possibly only three or four Bihari women. They were all mostly labourers. My father joined them. Once a man got settled in Calcutta, another from his village would come with him. The first man would take him to the Sardar-ji – meaning the leader – and ask if the new man could get a job. Soon the second man too would join in the work. At that time, these people ferried loads, worked at construction sites, pulled rickshaws, pushed carts. My father used to drive the bullock cart. Then he started supplying stone chips. Much later, by the time some of Birla’s buildings were coming up, my father had built a good relationship with the contractors. He supplied stone chips and building materials to possibly all the Birla buildings that were coming up then – the Industrial House, Belle Vue Clinic, Medical Institute etc. But he was not good at accounts, so he ran into terrible losses. He spent more than he earned. And by 1968 things became so bad that he decided to go back to Bihar. By then, I had been born and I believe that it was around this time that the thought of seriously settling down in Calcutta occurred. Earlier, even after he had brought my mother, I don’t think he had seriously thought of staying on here. He was very particular about good food and I think that is one of the main reasons he had brought my mother along. But around this time, the thought of settling down with family and educating his children in the city seemed to be more of a real possibility. Also, by this time, many Biharis had settled here. In fact, if you remember our north Howrah area, it is a mini-Bihar. His (Shaw’s) father like mine also came from Bihar, he was also born here like me. And for most of the people of my generation the story is the same. Their parents were among the first to migrate out of Bihar. At the beginning, this earning in a foreign land was entirely for the rural home. I remember my father used to send money home to buy land – one bigha, two bighas […] because the idea was always to go back to that home. So, when he faced a financial crisis in his business, – my sister had just been married, I had had a very bad accident, money for buying land had been sent, – he had very little savings kept to tide over tough

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times. Any money earned was always for buying land, not for anything else. I remember seeing my father in the fields whenever he went back to Bihar. BS: That was how it used to be. All Biharis who have migrated were at one time very attached to their land. Even now most of the people who come here as labourers, leaving their families, are mentally living in Bihar. A Bihari resident in parts of Calcutta like Kashipur does not even need to know Bengali. SR: In the belts of Kashipur, Howrah, Kamarhati and Naihati, there are many from the Baaliya, Chhapra side. They are from the cities of Patna, Gaya and Danapur which form the Magadh belt. Their language is Magadhi, which is close to Bhojpuri, but more like Maithili. The Maithili belt is towards the East. It has a different script. Vidyapati is considered to be a Bengali poet but actually he is a Maithili poet. He is considered Bengali because he uses the Bengali script. Biharis with surnames like Jha, Misra are all Maithili. But to get back [...] my father possibly thought of settling down in Bengal around the1960s because the Naxalite problem began around that time. There was uncertainty about buying land. Though the Naxalites were in central Bihar, the fear of terrorism was there. The Naxalite problem has remained in Bihar, hasn’t it? Unlike in Bengal, it never really got under control. Also, there were lots of crimes. That may have been part of the reason behind the decision to stay on in Calcutta. More so because there were so many of his relatives and friends already here then. Few Biharis went into jobs, though. Somehow the thought of a job, – being under someone else’s control, doesn’t appeal to us. Maybe that is why so few Biharis go into the army. In spite of an aggressive streak common to many of us, we don’t think of the army. We’ll work hard, very hard, – but being docile and obedient is not in our blood! To get back to my father’s story, – in 1968, he decided to send us back to Bihar. He remained here, – earning and saving money. So we went back, and by 1971, my father had established himself again; so he got us back. It was a huge family here by then – we were three brothers, two sisters, three uncles, their children, wives, other aunts and uncles. There were so many family members either staying, or coming and going, – it was really like a dharamshala. I hardly ever got a bed to sleep on. Most of the time we cousins and brothers would roll out a mattress on the floor at night. Or there were some khatiyas. The first time I got a proper bed to sleep on was when I went to IIT Kharagpur. My own bed – that was a strange feeling I remember.

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SM: Where did you do your schooling? SR: First in Bihar – where I topped the school. Then in Howrah itself – where I topped again. There are a number of schools here, and all with Bihari teachers, speaking mostly Bhojpuri. Many schools – Indira Pathshala, and others – had mostly Bihari kids and Bihari teachers. So we did not face anything like what you call identity crisis. We spoke our language, had our own caste people, food, shops, schools; places of Bihar repeatedly came up in our conversations. SM: Caste is very important to Biharis, isn’t it? Do you think it also helps to keep the communal bonds strong? BS: Yes, caste is so important to us that there is a lot of discussion about it even within the home. SR: Yes, for the Bihari living outside Bihar, one of the unifying factors will definitely be caste. People will want to know what my caste is. If I say I am Rai, then they will ask whether I am a Bhoomiar or Yadav. Misra, Rai, Singh – these are all overlapping titles. They may belong to quite a few groups. Within five or ten minutes of a meeting, this question will be asked. No matter how enlightened the Bihari, how educated, they will surely ask your caste. They will never come outside of caste. SM: So there’s no feeling of awkwardness in asking questions of caste? BS: No, no. Asking what is your caste is not awkward. It is very natural. Hum garv se kahte hei. We are proud of it. We are very comfortable with these questions. Whatever we do, we haven’t been able to come out of caste. And we’re okay with it. SR: Besides caste, language and other traditions like the Chhatt Puja also work as strong unifying factors when you stay in a different city. Because we stay together, celebrate together, talk in our language, – it is no longer an alien city. Take our language, for example. Humlog language nahi chhor payenge. Don’t know about our children, but to us, our language is very important. The third is our customs, which are distinct like the Chhatt Puja, rooted in the Bhojpuri culture. The entire family is involved, though only one person does the puja on behalf of the family. It is for the children, – Jeetiya, which means puja for the children, – so that God protects the child. We have other unique festivals like Teej. All these are important to us. And yes, caste is very important. If my children want to go to the disco, I have no problem with that, but they have to marry within our community. SM: Would you say that you faced any problem adjusting to the culture of Bengal?

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SR: We did, – a little. After I grew out of Howrah, went on to higher studies, I sometimes felt that these people do things differently. Though some of my closest friends were Bengali, you know. But my next generation will belong to this place. They don’t know Bihar, but they know this city. True, if you think of Calcutta as part of a larger state called Bengal, then I have to say that they may not relate to Bengal. But they will relate to Calcutta. Yet, people of my father’s generation, – my uncles, and to a lesser extent, even us – those who are emotionally Biharis, they can’t entirely relate to this place. Or to any other place. Though I’m much more comfortable in Calcutta than in Delhi or Bangalore. They’re completely metropolitan cities. Calcutta is a city very different from Bangalore and Delhi. But yes, I do sense this – that here some people get disturbed when a non-Bengali makes money. But that is better than the other greater problem in other states, where people are acutely conscious of their identity. Take for example Bombay, – there, even the word ‘Maratha’ is held in high esteem. An entertainment program is named ‘Me, Maratha’. But in Calcutta, you’ll never have any programme called ‘Me, Bengali’. There’s no agenda like that. Somehow because of the class struggle or whatever, politically Bengal is different. I’m comfortable here. Within one generation so many things change. My father would never have dreamt of buying a house like I have done in Calcutta. But I’m settled here for good.

NOTES 1

2 3

de Haan, Arjan, ‘Migrants, Livelihoods, and Rights: The Relevance of Migration in Development Policies’, Social Development Working Paper No.4, Social Development Department, February 2000, p. 13, [www.livelihoods.org/ hot_topics/docs/Haan_Migrants,livelihoods.pdf]. ‘Bihar queues up for passports’, 21 Dec 2007, The Telegraph, Calcutta, India. de Haan, Arjan, op. cit., p. 16.

Chapter 9 AGRAHARIS OF CALCUTTA: A MINORITY GROUP WITHIN THE LARGER SIKH COMMUNITY

Himadri Banerjee Sikh migration to the West is well-known.1 The voice of these rich overseas Sikhs signifies a powerful political force in the current Punjab situation. It is generally communicated through electronic mail, telephonic conversation, postal correspondence, print media, regular remittance and marriage network.2 Contemporary Punjab leadership also shows respect to this opinion. The situation is slightly different for Agraharis of Calcutta. They initially came from Bihar more than two hundred years ago, and represent one of the earliest settlers in the city. Neither are they regular visitors of the Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar nor do their views ever figure in any serious public platform.3 Demographically speaking, they constitute a microscopic minority representing less than .01 per cent of the total population of the metropolis. By virtue of long residence in Calcutta, their lifestyle and taste have increasingly converged with those of the local milieu. They know Bengali well but communicate in their mother tongue (Bhojpuri) when they interact amongst themselves. These Sikhs do not know Punjabi and prefer to maintain a line of demarcation from the numerically dominant Punjabi-speaking Sikhs in the locality. In terms of ethnic identity and physical distinctiveness, the native Sikhs have very little in common with their Punjabi counterparts of the region. The latter constitute a larger group and represent approximately .01 per cent of Calcutta’s population. They do not consider Agraharis to be their equals or even pukka (true) Sikhs. To them these indigenous Sikhs are a little sluggish in maintaining the Sikh communal identity markers. The local Sikhs are sometimes accused of drifting away from the Great Tradition of Sikhism born and nurtured in Punjab.

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Agraharis, however, do not seem worried regarding these aspersions of Punjabi-Sikhs. It is likely that their adherence to Panthic tenets and rites of passage are conditioned by many regional experiences, beliefs and traditions. The local sangat (religious congregation) generally celebrates gurpurabs (anniversaries of significant events associated with the Gurus) in its own way. They enthusiastically participate in many religious festivities not included in the recently introduced Nanakshahi Calendar4 of the SGPC. They maintain a syncretic profile – an outcome of their long interaction with varied non-Sikh groups in eastern India. The grand narrative of Sikhism, rooted in the geo-cultural perspective of Punjab, here adopts a local colour little known to the wider Sikh world. Scholarly silence regarding these native Sikhs seems to be enigmatic. There has been very little study on these people who generally claim the status of the sons of the soil. Their early history in the city is not available in any comprehensive document. Many of these Sikhs often project history as a blend with legends, myths, anecdotes and family memories. These oral traditions are in wide circulation, recited and remembered on different occasions, offering the participants an invisible bond of unity and identity with the wider community.5 Many find such experiences an adequate record of their past, and accordingly use them in daily life. My interactions with different members of the community, however, suggest that these experiences do not sufficiently reveal their worldview of history. They are aware of other sources for reconstructing their past. This may be a convenient starting point for the present enquiry.

I The following sections intend to review the history of one local minuscule Sikh group – Agraharis, who occupy a small corner of the larger Sikh world of Calcutta. They are generally seen in the east and central parts of the metropolis and represent an urban trading community living in the city for more than two centuries. Except a few common external markers like the five Ks, these Sikhs have very little similarity with their Punjabi counterparts. They have their distinct ethnic affiliation, food habits, dress and religious beliefs. They live in a fragmented and compartmentalized world further demarcated by their respective beliefs, aspirations, complexities and competitions. While outlining some of their distinctiveness, we would also be reviewing a few related issues like their native place, reasons for migration to their present territorial limit, early difficulties associated with their settlement, patterns of interaction with the host community, etc. which have hardly figured in any other Sikh studies of our time.

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Another relevant area of enquiry would be the perception of local Punjabi-Sikhs of Calcutta towards their nativized counterparts and vice versa. The former often pose as the guardians of the Calcutta Sikh world. They maintain an upper hand by virtue of larger number, easier access to local political apparatus and greater money and muscle power. The dominant position of Punjabi-Sikhs directs our attention towards deeper tension in the local Sikh scenario. One may also ask whether the divide suggests anything like social hierarchy and economic inequality in community life of the Calcutta Sikhs. The steady migration of PunjabiSikhs to the different urban centres of India beyond Punjab over the years has made these problems important to those who seek to appreciate the significance of Sikhism in its wider Indian context. According to their own sources, Agraharis are Sikhs from Bihar. They initially engaged in hewing and sale of agar (sweet-odoured) wood in Bihar since the medieval days.6 However, their Punjabi-speaking brethren often contemptuously label them as Patniyas, i.e. those who hail from Patna.7 The early history of these Sikhs in Bihar is available in a number of printed sources.8 These materials suggest very little about their presence in Calcutta. My interactions with them also did not yield much written source material. Even their gurdwaras have no old organizational records. These would have enriched our understanding of the early history of the community, its changing composition, the evolution of leadership over the years, the latter’s role in organizing gurpurabs and other community celebrations as well as their aftermath. Scarcity of written source material may be partly compensated by occasional references to a few court records, newspaper clippings, and one or two gurdwara reports of recent years. A sizeable amount of my information came from a number of senior Agraharis who have long been associated with the gurdwaras and other community organizations. Their reminiscences are important where local written records are not widely available. These sources may be biased and need to be rigorously scrutinized with the help of other materials. Agraharis are by no means a homogeneous community.9 During my fieldwork over the last few years,10 I came across two sub-groups who hold different views on certain matters of common interests. Later on I found that these groups were not of recent origin, and they diverged owing to numerous complex factors. Their testimony sometimes provides important indications in the reconstruction of Agrahari past of the early twentieth century. These oral sources do not answer all questions. Generally speaking, my interactions with Agraharis did not follow any fixed question pattern to

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which they had to respond. I did not always carry my tape recorder or other electronic gadgets during my fieldwork.11 I found that their use made a respondent very formal and cautious in answering my questions. At times these made them uncomfortable. I therefore preferred not to use them and started taking notes in outlines so that I may continue my interactions in a more informal and friendly manner. I met them not only in their public places like gurdwaras or school buildings, but enjoyed hospitality in their dwelling places as well. After sharing food some of them introduced me to their friends and relatives. In such cases, I had very little difficulty in opening communication with my new respondents. This format of interview made my interactions with the Calcutta Agraharis easier. Sometimes I had problems in decoding some of their oral testimonies. On many occasions, an Agrahari informant communicated an event in a very brief and cryptic manner not easily understandable. Later, other respondents might refer to the same episode and elaborate it in the context of another experience with which the earlier one had no direct bearing or relevance. The recurrent reference to a theme provided newer perspectives to my growing pool of field experiences. These remembrances were important for reconstructing the past, provided their validity could be established. Again, some disjointed oral testimonies were communicated by blending with other social experiences of a different period. Other fragmented oral sources conveyed the message of a world lying beyond the reach of official records, executive orders, printed sources, etc. These experiences provide the historian an additional key to many interesting dimensions of the past not reachable through the avenues of the printed media.12 He would be happy not only to buckle the ‘strong boots of an anthropologist’, but also carry the latter’s field notebook so that he may conveniently record those sources. Here lies an important area of enquiry into the history of Agraharis of Calcutta, so far neglected in Sikh studies.

II In Calcutta, Agraharis number a little over two thousand.13 Due to their insignificant number and penury, they do not figure distinctly in the vast demographic profile of Calcutta. Their marginality has been confirmed by the increasing concentration of Punjabi-Sikh population in the city in course of the last one hundred years. Even Bengali vernacular sources, which otherwise provide many interesting details regarding different ethnic groups of the city, do not refer to them.14 It is likely that owing to their closeness to Bhojpuri (Hindi), Agraharis were not easily distinguishable

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from other north Indian traders like Khatris. The latter were their major commercial partner in the city. Agraharis were active in Bara Bazaar area and shared economic skills, social attributes and religious beliefs of Khatris during the early years of settlement in the city.15 They were one of the earliest settlers of the metropolis. Calcutta was then a pre-industrial city. Its urban settlement was predominantly determined by mercantile needs. Bara Bazaar remained its nucleus which drew businessmen, shopkeepers, other traders, labourers and artisans. Agraharis were one of them.16 According to their own sources, Agraharis have been here since the last quarter of the eighteenth century when the city was emerging from its rural setting. These also suggest that they came from their native places in Bihar by boat along the Ganga and settled around Jorabagan–Jorasanko– Bara Bazaar area. Many others followed them on land. Taken together, they constituted the first batch of Sikh settlers in Calcutta. Later Agrahari sources suggest that the early migrants were mostly men from Sasaram in Bihar and related by family ties.17 Agraharis thus emerged as a closely-knit social group during the initial decades of Calcutta’s history. It helped them to negotiate with varied problems, like housing, food, credit and social relationships, universally associated with the early settlement of any community in a distant place. It is generally believed that they embraced Sikhism during Ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur’s visit to Bihar (mid 1660s). With their headquarters at Patna Harimandir, associated with memories of Guru Gobind Singh, these Sikhs were primarily a community of small traders scattered in different urban centres of Bihar from Sasaram to Bhagalpur, along the banks of the Ganga. Perhaps some developments in the composition of Bihar trade following the Battle of Plassey (1757),18 the rise of Calcutta as an important politicocommercial centre,19 and Agrahari expertise in overland business facilitated their migration to the city. A critical evaluation of different oral testimonies suggests that they gradually developed their early settlements in and around Bara Bazaar– Tulapatty–Upper Chitpur Road locality. It remained their core settlement area throughout the nineteenth century. During the same period, Bara Bazaar developed as a ‘big market’, thanks to the presence of many northern Indian merchants, especially Khatris. Their control over long distance credit, complex trading network in major northern Indian markets and beyond, intimate connection with the East India Company’s early investment policy, and trading activities in Bihar and Bengal placed them in an advantageous position.20 Perhaps it helped Agraharis in the growing retail business at the local level.

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Trade remained the predominant occupation of these men during their early days in the city. Besides peddling, they engaged in cotton trade. Their first settlement around Tulapatty generally confirms the point. Later on, a few of them traded predominantly in cotton thread, piece goods, brocade, embroidery works and wool, among other things. Sometimes they even operated as brokers or commission agents of north Indian firms. With the increase of population in the subsequent decades of the nineteenth century, they shifted to other ventures like tailoring, stone carving and sweetmeat making, and set up permanent shops and outlets around Bara Bazaar area.21 Many of these establishments remained under their control till the early decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps the more successful ones subsequently moved beyond the core area west of Chitpur Road around Bara Bazaar–Tulapatty region. This in turn stimulated certain complex changes in their old residential arrangements.

III The spread of Sikhism is intimately associated with the foundation of a gurdwara. It is the centre of community life and plays a pivotal role in maintaining social cohesion in its ranks. On many occasions, the religious space of community activity becomes the platform for power struggle and leadership. The history of Agraharis in Calcutta is no exception to this. It is generally agreed that Agraharis came to Calcutta long before the arrival of their Punjabi brethern, and set up the first gurdwara in the city. It appears from a record of the High Court, Calcutta, of the mid-nineteenth century that a religious establishment was founded by one Raja Huzurimal around 1790. 22 It remained under the control and management of Agraharis, who generally respected Harimandir of Patna Sahib as their sanctum sanctorum. Their domination more or less persisted throughout the nineteenth century. We do not have any specific information regarding the functioning of the Sikh sangat till the second half of the nineteenth century.23 Like any other gurdwara of Bihar, it was possibly supervised by an informally constituted body composed of a few leading members of the community. The same organization used to make necessary arrangements for the daily services in the gurdwara. Thus a granthi (custodian of a gurdwara) cum pujari (priest) generally read from the Sikh sacred text, votaries offered prayers, participated in regular kirtan (congregational singing), and possibly a langri remained in charge of langar (common kitchen) services. It was also an important centre for religious and social festivities, a place for

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settling terms of trade and offering temporary shelter to holy men on pilgrimage. Perhaps the permanent construction of the gurdwara was first undertaken on plot numbers 72 and 73 of Cross Street in Bara Bazaar area. It was later shifted to the front part of the same piece of land facing Harrison Road (renamed as Mahatma Gandhi Road) on way to Howrah Railway Station.24 Agrahari management over the gurdwara, however, faced the first major challenge in the second half of the nineteenth century. It appears from the same source that a protracted conflict ensued in the late 1860s, which continued till the gurdwara had passed under the management of PunjabiSikhs around the mid-twentieth century. The contending parties sought the legal intervention of the High Court, Calcutta, in 1870. These sources bring out that it was primarily a quarrel for control over the management of the sangat. We are not sure whether either of the contending parties enjoyed the blessings and patronage of Patna Harimandir, even though the entire estate was managed in its name and many gurdwara rituals replicated those in Patna. The legal battle had deeper implications for Calcutta Agraharis. In the first place, the allegations exchanged over the appointment of a pujari, the charges of non-performance of certain sevas (gurdwara services) and the defalcation from golak (common gurdwara fund) frequently figured in the court proceedings. These accusations, which characterize the usual form of gurdwara power struggle, indicate the presence of more than one group among Agraharis.25 Secondly, the court proceedings refer neither to the presence of Punjabi-Sikhs nor to the varied developments taking place in contemporary Punjab. This may mean the relative unimportance of Punjabi-Sikhs in Calcutta gurdwara politics till the mid-nineteenth century. On the other hand, it was all about the Calcutta Agraharis and their fierce battle over the control of the local sangat. The stiff legal encounter was destined to become more serious later in the century. Finally, the court battle highlights the importance of the sangat in the Sikh community life. The gurdwara at Bara Bazaar was till then its most important religious place, controlled by the community and catering to the needs of the local Sikhs. Its management provided the leadership access to power and authority that was otherwise impossible. But the lawsuit of 1870 brought some of their inner disagreements to the surface and made the place of worship central to community politics. The struggle at the highest organizational level widened divisions among Agraharis and prompted many to shift their attention elsewhere. It stimulated the foundation of new centres of community activity and precipitated the devolution of power

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among a larger number of people, thereby possibly widening the area of conflict in the following decades. Thus the closing years of the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of some new gurdwaras where the disgruntled individuals would seek space as best as they could.

IV Local Agraharis shared some of these experiences from the early 1880s. Those who were increasingly marginalized in Bara Bazaar sangat decided to set up another gurdwara under their management. It came up near Cotton Street–Upper Chitpur Road crossing. Situated at a stone’s throw from the older gurdwara on Mahatma Gandhi Road, the new institution was popularly called Chota Sikh Sangat.26 A second gurdwara in the city possibly affected the celebration of gurpurabs, and also raised serious doubts regarding the significance of old social bonds in running these establishments. The new body formally started functioning from April 1881.27 It brought new leaders to the front. As the years of conflict were extended, these men not only sought to evolve new levels of cooperation within the second gurdwara, but also tried to forge a working relationship with their older partners. But differences between the two Agrahari organizations remained. Beyond the politics of group rivalry and competition, Agraharis had long wanted a second gurdwara at a more convenient location. It was primarily required for the growing population of the community.28 Many new faces had arrived from native places in Bihar in search of occupational opportunities in Calcutta. Other older settlers often asked their families to come to the city. In the meantime, a new generation had also been born in the local urban setting. The establishment of a second gurdwara therefore provided the much required space to many of them. Perhaps the founding of a new gurdwara also underlines the prosperity of a small section of Agraharis. Around the same time, a few families had achieved some financial success. Their names are still resonant in community memory. They are Tara Singh (Madan Mohan Burman Street), Munnilal Singh (Mahatma Gandhi Road), Harinarayan Singh (Syed Salley Lane) and Panchanan Singh (Mitra Lane).29 It is generally agreed that they amassed wealth through wholesale trade of cotton and its supply to different governmental organizations.30 Transactions with one or two British overseas companies also cannot be ruled out. These perhaps brought Agraharis closer to the local level administrative apparatus and its patronage.31 A sizeable part of their earnings went into the construction of dwelling places. A portion of

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these buildings was sometimes turned into private gurdwaras. The majority of these new big houses cum private religious places grew up beyond the core area of their settlement in Bara Bazaar–Tulapatty– Upper Chitpur Road of central Calcutta. These newly constructed private gurdwaras managed by new generation leaders in places beyond Bara Bazaar suggest a significant change in the worldview of Agraharis. The community was no longer uncertain of its survival in the new place of settlement. The new leadership continued many of its primordial ties at the community level, but did not regard these as vital for survival. In course of its century-long existence in the most important market place of Calcutta, the community had also learnt many important things – one was the building up of newer local ties and their beneficial implications. These enabled them to look beyond Bara Bazaar area and to communicate across ethnic lines and linguistic barriers. They enriched themselves from such experiences, grew wiser in the world of credit network and mastered the implications of price fluctuation in cotton trade and its ramifications in local markets. A new sense of confidence and mobility was visible at least among a small section of the community. Those who had profited in their trade constituted the new leadership. It was in search of additional trading ventures looking for greater profit and power. It led to the development of a small, new residential area around Mahatma Gandhi Road–Mechhua Bazaar–Kolutola area and beyond. The eastward push of Agrahari settlement away from the core settlement area (i.e. western side of Upper Chitpur Road facing Ganga) in the late nineteenth century suggests the new strength and confidence of the community which it had never shown before.

V The prosperity of a segment of the community stimulated changes in the local Agrahari world. In the first place, the new rich men, residing beyond the core area, were known for their expensive style of living. They were also widely respected for their commendable social deeds and patronage to different sections of the community. They often extended financial and other assistance to members of the community who had lately arrived from Bihar and were trying to settle down in the city.32 Besides reinforcing the traditional patron–client connection at certain levels for the next few decades, these rich members of the community were soon to turn their new residential space along the east of Upper Chitpur Road towards Mechhua Bazaar (i.e. the periphery), more important than the core area around Jorabagan-Jorasanko-Tulapatty region.33

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This shift in the leadership consequent upon the prosperity of a few also stirred newer tensions in Agrahari society. These newly rich and their private gurdwaras on many occasions turned out to be as good as autonomous units, sometimes questioning the authority and control of the two public gurdwaras situated on the western side of Upper Chitpur Road. Here Agraharis experienced an uncomfortable situation where the writs of their older gurdwaras had to negotiate with occasional challenges and sporadic frictions. It not only underlines a certain amount of erosion of authority of the older gurdwaras but also the growing dominance of the newer ones, thereby indicating once more the readjustment of power at the community level. Among others things, these must have affected the smooth functioning of Chota Sikh Sangat. A section of the leadership, which had earlier played an important part in its foundation and management, shifted its time and attention to the respective private gurdwaras. Prosperity of some of these private gurdwaras, Tara Singh Sangat in particular, where a huge amount of money was spent on the occasion of Janmashtami (festival associated with the birth of Lord Krishna), became the talk of the community. Soon after its birth, Chota Sikh Sangat was thus deprived of some of its leading patrons. On the other hand, the private gurdwaras flourished, at least during the lifetime of some of their founders. But Chota Sikh Sangat gradually managed to recuperate much of its lost power in an interesting way. This was accomplished in the closing years of the nineteenth century when a new Agrahari settlement steadily grew up near the present Narkeldanga region in eastern Calcutta, a little out of the way from the core residential area in Bara Bazaar. Nearly three miles from Chota Sikh Sangat, the place was a small stretch of jungle waste, marked as Guru-ka-Bagh in many of the records of Bara Sikh Sangat. 34 It was a gurdwara property where every member of the community had an equal right of entry. It is likely that those Agraharis who were the descendants of the early settlers or those who had so far not been able to purchase, rent or acquire even a small plot of land in Bara Bazaar area or its adjoining places moved there in search of future habitat. The steady outward push of residents from the core area to Guru-kaBagh laid the foundation of a small Agrahari settlement in the locality towards the close of the nineteenth century. Many Agrahari settlers of Guru-ka-Bagh area found regular contact with Bara Sikh Sangat comparatively difficult. They felt the need of having a place of worship nearer to their new area of settlement. Fortunately, Guru-ka-Bagh had enough space for the construction of a gurdwara building and a sarobar (tank) nearby which gave it a new distinctiveness. No older Agrahari

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gurdwara in the densely populated Upper Chitpur Road–Mechhua Bazaar area could offer this ablution or washing facility to its devotees.35 Leaders from Chota Sikh Sangat extended initial moral support to Agrahari settlers in establishing a new gurdwara in Guru-ka-Bagh (1893) locality lest it become another private one. Possibly this was a lesson learnt from the recent foundation of private gurdwaras on the eastern side of Upper Chitpur Road near the core settlement area. Men from Chota Sikh Sangat supervised the different stages of construction, offered financial support and made plans for its sustenance in future. In later years, its management board would evolve a healthy working relationship with local men at Guru-ka-Bagh. The latter was given enough autonomy and freedom in running the regular services of the gurdwara, and encouraged to look towards Chota Sikh Sangat during major celebrations. Thus, Chota Sikh Sangat leadership could successfully put the legal seal of its authority when the new gurdwara was finally placed under its overall control and supervision. This arrangement more or less persists even today.36

VI These developments underline that Chota Sikh Sangat leadership learnt much from the events around it. But the management board of Bara Sikh Sangat showed virtually no concern to negotiate with the challenges affecting the gurdwara management since the first legal battle in the 1870s. Naturally, the defalcation of gurdwara funds, the diversion of financial resources for private gain, or even mortgaging gurdwara land to traders in Bara Bazaar continued.37 Many of these problems did not miss the attention of a section of Punjabi-Sikhs of Calcutta. Following the introduction of modern surface transport in the city in the early twentieth century, they had steadily settled here in larger numbers. They were predominantly enthusiastic supporters of the Akali cause for gurdwara reforms which were then going on in Punjab in the 1920s.38 These Sikhs were ready to execute their Punjab experiences in the different gurdwaras of Calcutta. They had numerous complaints against the daily management of Bara Sikh Sangat.39 The strongest criticism against Agrahari leadership was its ‘Hinduizing’ message of Sikh Gurus. The leadership was even accused of ‘tampering’ with Sikh rituals. These were ‘modified’ and performed in accordance with the religious experiences and ceremonies practised in Harimandir at Patna. It was particularly evident when the annual death anniversary of Guru Nanak (sradh) was celebrated by a section of Agraharis of Calcutta. Like many local Bihari religious events, its gurdwaras gave arati (i.e. prayer

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with light) before the portraits of Sikh Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib, with simultaneous parkash (installation) of the Adi Granth and the Dasam Granth, and songs accompanied by musical instruments, all underlining Agrahari Sikh’s intimate cultural link with the Hindu world of Bihar. Their men and women generally wore dresses like dhotis and saris and put on tilak (sacred mark) on forehead. They also observed vratas (ritual fasting) and participated in festivities not recognized by the orthodox Sikh calendar. Beyond the limits of the gurdwara, they celebrated Chhat festival (worship of sun) as well as Ramnavami (function associated with the coronation of Lord Ram), which underline their intimate link with the varied Bihari socio-cultural experiences of the countryside.40 The message of Sikhism thus conveyed by the management board of Bara Sikh Sangat had been generally evolved and nurtured in Bihari cultural setting and later on, carried to their new settlement in Calcutta. To any Agrahari, these rituals remained an integral part of his religious belief and tradition. These not only accommodated the Khalsa/ Sahajdhari ‘duality’, but also offered space to many popular religious practices not endorsed in the Tat Khalsa41 discourse. On the other hand, the point of view of their Punjabi counterpart was overwhelmingly coloured by the Singh Sabha ideology which sought to achieve a communal identity of the Sikhs separate from that of the Hindus. It focused on the ‘Sikhs of the Khalsa’ with their emphasis on the rahit (the Khalsa code of conduct). It indirectly urged upon Agraharis to reject many of those beliefs and practices which had long been associated with the Sanatani Agrahari milieu in Calcutta. Thus two distinct traditions of Sikhism that had evolved in two distant parts of India, converged on Calcutta. The Akali struggle for gurdwara reforms in the 1920s offered an opportunity for a trial of strength. The financial muddle as well as chronic administrative mismanagement at Bara Sikh Sangat made it vulnerable to the growing Akali criticism of the period. It turned out to be an unequal battle. In spite of late arrival in the city, the politically articulate Punjabi-Sikhs could successfully exploit the growing nationalist sentiment in their campaign against Agraharis. The deeply divided Bara Sikh Sangat leadership also failed to rise to the level which Chota Sikh Sangat had already demonstrated in its relationship with Guruka-Bagh Gurdwara.

VII During the post-World War I years, Agraharis were increasingly marginalized in the Calcutta Sikh scenario. It was no longer an all Agrahari world predominantly confined to Chitpur–Bara Bazaar–Jorabagan locality.

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The city was fast expanding in the southward direction.42 It witnessed the introduction of modern automobiles which precipitated the presence of Sikhs from Punjab.43 They drove taxis and buses, sold spare parts, joined private security services, operated different machine tools and set up small hotels between Bhowanipur–Hazra landscape (south Calcutta). Many were Akali sympathizers and reached Calcutta with bitter anti-British sentiments. The metropolis had long remained an important centre of nationalist struggle where the newly arriving Punjabi-Sikhs could curve out a niche of their own. Their anti-colonial mobilization was inconceivable without a reference to gurdwara reforms. It brought them close to the focal point of Agrahari world – Bara Sikh Sangat. The Akali rhetoric of gurdwara reforms ‘was an avowedly materialistic one’ because these ‘were a major source of funds’. Their taking over would also offer them a platform of ‘communication’ with the wider Sikh community.44 Gurdwaras of Calcutta therefore offered Akalis an important political springboard outside Punjab. Sikhs from Punjab working in the city were predominantly rural Jats long accustomed to dominate their community life. They provided important political leaders over the centuries. Many of these Sikhs regarded the uninterrupted corruptions as well as the prevalence of the Sanatani rituals in Bara Sikh Sangat as nothing but demeaning to Sikh izaat (prestige).45 Even in Calcutta’s urban situation, the Sikh peasant’s commitment to faith evoked enough emotional support to rally them for the cause of ‘clearing’ a gurdwara of its numerous maladies. Agrahari leadership of the local sangat, engaged in group rivalry, was incapable of countering Akalis. Long sheltered by the colonial economic umbrella, its leadership virtually led a cocooned life in and around central Calcutta. Their distance from the ongoing national struggle, intimate economic ties with a section of European merchants, costly lifestyle and lack of exposure to any modern educational training, kept the prestigious Sikh religious institution beyond any popular scrutiny. The growing Akali presence in the city as well as their cry for the SGPC’s intervention on all matters of Bara Sikh Sangat placed the Bengal Government in an inconvenient situation. It had no option but to resist Akalis and ask Agrahari controlled management board to follow suit. A definite battle line was drawn around Bara Sikh Sangat. It was not a mere Akali fight for taking over a gurdwara and establishing its administrative control there. A few larger issues were involved. It became a contested terrain where nationalists of different political shades and religions were facing the colonial power. The latter in its turn was getting ready to fight a proxy war with the nationalists using the pliable Agrahari leadership as its local representative.

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As early as 1923, Akalis had made their blueprint ready. But they could not attain their goal even after twenty years of resistance.46 It was only in the mid 1940s when the colonial power was on its way out, that Punjabi-Sikhs could oust Agraharis from their gurdwara. Contemporary sources point out that in this battle of nerves, both the parties were never reluctant to come to terms and leave the place with grace. But newer developments in the local scenario as well as in Punjab made any permanent solution almost impossible. The determined administration employed wide-ranging legal weapons47 as well as varied coercive methods so that Akalis could be forced to leave the gurdwara premises, while Punjabi-Sikhs were no less enthusiastic to exploit the nationalist card to further their cause.48 Taken as a whole, the battle for Bara Sikh Sangat underlines how two groups of the same community fiercely fought against one another. The assailants were Punjabi-Sikhs. They carried aggression against their smaller counterpart who were least competent to defend them. Akalis being stronger both numerically and organizationally emerged victorious while its impact on Agraharis was almost disastrous.

VIII By the middle of the twentieth century, Agraharis of Calcutta were extremely cornered socially as well as economically. They were not only deprived of their control over the oldest city gurdwara but also suffered indignity. During its long years of struggle, a section of Agrahari leadership failed to face the problems in a constructive manner. It did not have any long-term plan of reinvigorating the administration of Bara Sikh Sangat. On the contrary, some members of the management board were more inclined to use its funds and platform for personal gain. The situation deteriorated increasingly, such that Agraharis had to leave in the midst of much acrimony. The fight virtually exhausted the community’s economic resources, made it almost politically isolated from the wider national movement, and burdened it with humiliation it had perhaps never experienced before. During the same period, they suffered a few other major economic reverses. The World War I and the Great Depression of 1929 deeply strained the economic resources of the community. A small group of Agraharis traded in the finer variety of imported cotton textiles.49 The ravages of the war, the high price of cotton cloth, the growing dominance of Marwaris in Bara Bazaar market, the Gandhian politics around khadi (home-spun cloth), and the unfortunate financial implications of the Great

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Depression made matters grave for many of them.50 Those who had earlier amassed some wealth by trading with a number of British companies also experienced difficulties to some extent owing to the deep nationalist opposition to British machine made cloth. Agraharis also felt increasingly isolated since they had stayed away from the nationalist politics. Even the owners of private gurdwaras, long known for public benevolence, could hardly offer much relief to the weaker Agraharis. On many occasions, the luxurious lifestyle of the patrons contributed to their economic ruin. They had to sell or mortgage their urban estates and big dwelling houses to Marwari traders who had steadily extended their hold around Bara Bazaar locality after the World War I. These unfortunate developments offered to a section of the community an occasion for introspection. It raised serious doubts regarding the competence of the existing leadership in the smooth running of any public institution. It was debated in some quarters whether the community was really in need of modern education then available to other groups in the city. A section also felt the need for being proficient in Punjabi to resist the challenges of Punjabi-Sikhs in different areas of the local Sikh world. Many others endorsed it because it would offer them a direct access to the Sikh sacred text. It would further introduce the community to the wider Sikh world. It would not only make them better Sikhs but also help in the management of gurdwaras. Some argued that the community’s failure to recover from the recent economic discomfiture as well as its inability to maintain effective control over Bara Sikh Sangat might be due to lack of adequate training in financial control and organizational management. On many occasions the situation was such that the leadership had to depend entirely on Bengali clerks for keeping the account books and the proceedings of the meetings of the gurdwara. These were generally maintained in Bengali51 and left the leadership almost in the dark about the actual financial position of their sangat. The confusion and irregularity in the gurdwara financial management therefore required an immediate overhauling for the community’s future well-being. Besides the growing popularity and respect for Akalis, their widespread participation in the nationalist politics of Calcutta as well as fraternization with a section of Agrahari youth raised some serious doubts about the community’s politics of loyalty towards the British Raj. The leadership had so long tried to maintain a safe, if not, a stoic distance from the nationalist agitation owing to its close economic ties with a section of European merchants.

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IX From the mid 1920s, many of these questions were often debated among Agraharis of Calcutta. Growing politicization of a section of Agrahari youth, their urge for learning some basic in Hindi and Punjabi, the felt need for a cleaner and more transparent gurdwara administration were indicative of that certain changes in the community. Already the unfortunate experience of the riot of 1926, leading to the desecration of the Sikh sacred book at Harinarayan Sangat (Syed Salli Lane) had brought them out on the streets of the city.52 On this occasion they received the sympathy and support of Punjabi-Sikhs of Calcutta that had made them feel temporarily a part of the larger nationalist politics of the period.53 An immediate outcome of this was the forging of closer ties with the local Congress leadership.54 The community’s growing need for primary education as well as the Congress’s plan of making it an important part of its social reconstruction programme in the wake of the Non-Cooperation Movement brought them closer. Amidst much fanfare, a primary school was founded within Guru-ka-Bagh (1927) area. It received much support from the younger sections of the community. But the majority of its older leadership did not favour change. Thus in the 1930s, except the foundation of another free primary school, Agraharis once again went back into their political cocoon. They continued to be there till the beginning of the Quit India Movement in 1942, when a major break occurred in the politics of the community. The intervening years, however, witnessed their modest success in the field of primary education. In the midst of the political turmoil of the 1930s, the community had managed to set up another free primary school in the premises of Chota Sikh Sangat. It was named Guru Nanak Vidyalaya and started functioning in 1934. The new institution’s main emphasis was also on the teaching of Hindi and Punjabi to the younger generation of Agraharis. There was even a proposal for introducing English in the school curriculum. One Ganpat Singh, a Trustee of Chota Singh Sangat became its first Punjabi instructor. Later a pujari from Dhaka Gurdwara was asked to take charge of teaching Punjabi in the gurdwara school. The foundation of Guru Nanak Vidyalaya encouraged them to press for a few financial reforms as well as some changes in the daily rituals of the sangat. It is likely that those who were seeking these reforms with the teachers of the Vidyalaya (here after the School Group) drew inspiration from their interactions with the radical Akalis of the city. They not only wanted to go beyond the unfortunate experiences of Bara Sikh Sangat management

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board, but also set up a ‘better’ standard of administration in their gurdwaras. The reforming message evoked sharp reactions. It was bitterly criticized by a section of the leadership who had long opposed the entry of Agraharis into nationalist politics. Conservatives in Chota Sikh Sangat also apprehended that these reforms would lead to a major realignment in the power structure of the community. It would initiate a swing away from the local Agrahari culture and eventually land the community in the political grip of Punjabi-Sikhs. It was feared that the community would lose much of its autonomy and power in the management of their gurdwaras, and invite growing Akali interference. This imagined threat of ‘Punjabization’ had long troubled a section of Agraharis. In the 1930s, it sounded like an alarm bell to some of the old guards of the community. Many of them interpreted the reformists’ move as an attempt to set aside the age-old Sanatani identity of Agraharis and replace it with a new set of Akali rituals and political idiom which had virtually no significance for them. They apprehended that this would eventually lead to the taking over of their gurdwaras by Punjabi-Sikhs whom they avoided, hated and feared. The message of reform originating from Guru Nanak Vidyalaya thus emphasized a sharp division in the local Agrahari world and rallied the larger number of the moderates with the Trustees of Chota Sikh Sangat. It was the dread of Akali dominance that had brought together the Trustees against any reform in their gurdwara affairs. The Trustees themselves were not all aboveboard. A section of them was accused of misusing gurdwara funds, of creating unnecessary confusion, and preventing the smooth and orderly functioning of the sangat. It increasingly widened the gulf among the existing members of the Trustee Board of the gurdwara and the School Group. It would have taken a serious turn but for the August Satyagraha, the Japanese air raids on the city and above all, the beginning of the Calcutta riot of August 1946 affecting Agraharis. It was followed by the partition of Bengal, the independence of the country, and the influx of a large number of Bengali-Hindu refugees in and around the metropolis. All these developments occurring in quick successions deeply disturbed Agraharis of Mechhua–Bara Bazaar– Narkeldanga (Guru-ka-Bagh) area.55

X The post-independence years, however, brought no relief to Agrahari infighting. The tumultuous experiences of the 1940s had temporarily

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compelled the community to set aside its inner struggle. As the external threats subsided in the early 1950s, many old issues began to surface. The School Group made the first move because it was then more organized. It spoke more confidently owing to significant changes in the position of the teachers of Guru Nanak Vidyalaya. Teachers who had earlier been paid by Chota Sikh Sangat began to receive some financial support from the local government. It perhaps made them more confident and assertive on matters relating to gurdwara management. On the other hand, the Trustee Board of the gurdwara had no reason to listen to the suggestions of the School Group who had so long been their subordinate staff. But the problems of the Trustees were compounded owing to their infighting and the lack of organizational discipline among them.56 All these developments of the post-independence years once more made the situation extremely conflicting and prompted the leaders of the gurdwara to carry these matters to the court room (1954).57 Perhaps the growing ill will and the undefined nature of relationship between Chota Sikh Sangat management board and the School Group precipitated the crisis. This time the legal intervention was of a more serious and decisive nature. After four years of legal battle, the Court appointed a Receiver and asked him, on behalf of the Court, to supervise the daily administration of the gurdwara (1958). The arrangement continued for nearly four years. Finally, in 1962, following an amicable settlement between the contending parties, the Court asked the Receiver to take necessary steps for the transfer of power to a democratically elected body. The Court also asked the Receiver to draw up a constitution of Chota Sikh Sangat and hold an election on the basis of a corrected electoral role. It would include the names of all adult members of the community who would be eligible to vote in the forthcoming poll. After the election, a democratically elected body took charge of Chota Sikh Sangat (1962). The newly elected management committee of the gurdwara, no doubt, represented the wider sections of the community. But the teachers of Guru Nanak Vidyalaya continued to be its undeclared opposition and played an important role in rallying isolated and disgruntled Agrahari reformers.58 Perhaps its existence within the gurdwara does not allow the message of reforms to die down. Its Punjabi teaching courses were abruptly stopped, but its commitment to instruction in Hindi gradually yielded results. In the post-independence years, when Chota Sikh Sangat was ready to receive a new Trustee Board (1962), the gurdwara proceedings and account books were no longer written in Bengali. The new generation of leadership had switched over to Hindi. Thus Agrahari reformers of the 1940s had some reasons to be happy about their achievements in the

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early 1960s. The lion’s share of the credit would perhaps go to the School Group. It is quite common that many of the strategies of the group politics of the gurdwara continue to be planned and elaborated in the premises of Guru Nanak Vidyalaya. The School Group still does not have the credibility to dictate terms to Chota Sangat management board because it neither enjoys the backing of the community nor has the financial strength to implement its plan of action.

XI After two centuries in the city, Agraharis of Calcutta still live in anonymity to the wider Sikh world. Their inconsequential numbers, economic corrosion, absence of print-culture and dearth of public platform outside gurdwaras have confined them to a narrow urban space. Loss of control over a number of gurdwaras situated in central Calcutta intensifies their marginality in the city. In the mid 1940s, these religious institutions were physically taken over by Punjabi-Sikhs who also hate them for their Sanatani beliefs and rituals. Long before these onslaughts, a significant number of Agraharis, however, managed to come out of their core residential area. They have extended new settlements as far as Guru-kaBagh in east Calcutta. Apart from their quarrels with their Punjabi brethren, they also suffered from group rivalry. It weakened the community from within. In spite of large-scale economic spanking and social humiliation, Agraharis have retained community distinctiveness. They came to the city with the hyphenated Sikh identity. Their dress, food habits, mother tongue, social behaviour, celebrations and gurdwara rituals reveal how close they were to Bihar.59 In their core settlement area around central and eastern Calcutta,60 they generally resided in a plural cultural milieu. It offered an option of interaction beyond community limits without eroding ties of kinship. Agraharis continue to thrive as Bihari-Sikhs, though their understanding of Sikhism significantly differs from the perceptions of their counterparts from Punjab. A recent research outlining numerous Sikh settlements in global perspective point out how their residents came ‘to terms with what means to be a Sikh at large’, and still ‘thrive in new and varied social settings without ceasing to be Sikhs’.61 In pursuance of their public lives as a distinct minority community, they made many unpalatable compromises which had ensured those Sikhs a new lease of life as a transnational community. But in Calcutta, Punjabi-Sikhs refused to show any degree of tolerance and compassion toward their less numerous and economically weak

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Agrahari neighbours. They even questioned their Sikh credibility to manage their gurdwaras. These encounters generated fear perceptions and caused disruptions in the public life of Agraharis. Unlike the diasporan Sikhs, their counterparts living in Calcutta were reluctant to appreciate any plurality or hybridity in Sikh beliefs and practices. They therefore hit back their minority group located within the larger Sikh minority profile.62 This gives rise to doubts about how one would be defining the limits of a Sikh minority group within the wider Sikh canvas.63 There is another side of the story and it is related to Agraharis of the city. Unlike many other settlers in Calcutta, they do not convey any encouraging message of growth as a community. There are, however, a few individual Agrahari success stories. Generally speaking, they mostly live beyond the present day Agrahari residential limits in central and eastern Calcutta. Leaving them aside, Agrahari economic profile can hardly be compared with that of their Punjabi counterparts. The latter came more than one hundred years after the former but soon became a financially viable community. Agrahari stagnation is perhaps largely an outcome of what Nirmal Kumar Bose had written about the city nearly four decades ago. He referred to its urban space as ‘an economy of scarcity’.64 Perhaps Agraharis have not yet got access to the password to go beyond the world underlined by Bose.

NOTES 1

2

3

For a detailed bibliography on Sikh migration in the West and other parts of the world, see McLeod, W H, Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, 1995, pp. 313–18. Also see his ‘Forty Years of Sikh Migration’, in Exploring Sikhism: Aspects of Sikh Identity, Culture, and Thought, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000, pp. 237–56. There has been much research on the different overseas links of the Sikhs. Here I refer to three important studies of recent years. Brack, Bruce La, ‘Overseas Sikhs and the Economy of Punjab: Remittances Before and After 1984’, in Dulai, Surjit and Helweg, Arthur, eds, Punjab in Perspective : Proceedings of the Research Committee on Punjab Conference, 1987, Michigan University Press, East Lansing, 1991, pp. 95–106; Thandi, Shinder, ‘The Punjabi Diaspora in the UK and the Punjab Crisis’, in Singh, Pashaura and Barrier, N Gerald, eds, The Transmission of Sikh Heritage in the Diaspora, Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 1996, pp. 231–3; Dusenbery, Verne A, Sikhs at Large: Religion, Culture, and Politics in Global Perspectives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2008, pp. 136–62. During my numerous visits to their houses, I have come across photographs of the Golden Temple hanging on the wall of their bedroom and drawing room. Many told me that though they had not been able to be there, they would always wish to visit the holy place in future. I have also found them listening to Gurbani in Punjabi television channel. But these Sikhs nowhere

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4

5

6 7

8

9

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figure in any major discussions of the SGPC (Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the most respected Sikh religious body on all matters of religion, situated in Amritsar). Even during the recent debate on the constitution of International Sikh Confederation, many anxieties were expressed regarding ‘millions of tribal Sikhs like Vanjaras, Sikligars, Lobanas, Tharuas, etc. known as Nanak Panthis’ ‘living in utter neglect and abject poverty in several states of India’, but it never referred to these Sikhs in eastern India. See International Sikh Confederation (Sikh Apex Body): Its Need and Proposed Constitution, Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh, n. d., pp. 15–16. A similar view was expressed earlier, in Abstracts of Sikh Studies, July–December 1999, p.122. It is the official calendar approved by the SGPC providing dates for all Sikh celebrations throughout the year. For a detailed discussion on this point, see Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1965. This issue would again be taken up in a subsequent section of the essay. Prakash, Ved, The Sikhs in Bihar, Janaki Prakashan, Patna, 1981, p. 46. This was my common experience whenever I had referred to Agraharis during my interactions with Punjabi-Sikh friends. Initially I did not know that the term Patniya conveyed a derogatory meaning. Later on my growing interactions with Agraharis enabled me to understand its varied and deeper implications. Wilkins, Charles, ‘The Sikhs and their College at Patna [1781]’, in Singh, Ganda, ed., The Early European Accounts of the Sikhs and History of Origin and Progress of the Sikhs, Today & Tomorrow’s Printers & Publishers, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 207–11; Jackson, V H, ed., Journal of Francis Buchanan (Afterwards Hamilton) Kept During the Survey of the Districts of Patna and Gaya in 1811-12, Superintendent, Government Printing, Bihar and Orissa, Patna, 1925, pp. 73, 171–2, 183–5; Census of India, 1901, Vol. V, Part II, pp. 244–6; Askari, S A, ‘Some Records Relating to the Sikhs in Bihar: Draft Report of the Regional Records Survey Committee, Bihar (1960-61)’, pp. 58–66 (an unpublished paper seen by the courtesy of Kirpal Singh, Punjabi University, Patiala); O’ Malley, L S S, ‘The Agraharis of Sasaram’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1904, Vol. LXXVI, Part III, pp. 35–43. Authors from Bihar like Shibnanadan Sahaya of Bankipur and Rambriksha Sharma Benipuri of Laheriyasarai wrote on Sikhs. They were silent about Bihari-Sikhs. Agraharis of Calcutta claim that they do not have any social divisions among them. But those who came from Sasaram represent an important section of the group. They are also comparatively well-off in the local society. Many of them prefer to marry in Bihar instead of taking a bride from the locality. In a sense they sometimes dominate their kinsman, who are born and brought up in Calcutta and married into local Agrahari families. My fieldwork among Agraharis began in July 2000 and continued till 2005. There were long breaks in between these years. I used to carry my notebooks and occasionally a tape recorder while talking to them, till the end of 2002. Later on I stopped carrying my tape recorder. I have often visited their homes as well as gurdwaras at Cotton Street (Chota Sikh Sangat) and Narkeldanga (Guru-ka-Bagh). I still have personal contact with many of them, who reside in different parts of old Calcutta.

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11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

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cf. McLeod, W H, Punjabis in New Zealand: A History of Punjabi Migration 18901940, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, 1986, pp. 5–9. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘Nation and Imagination’, Studies in History, New Series, Vol. XV, No. 2, 1999 p. 175. Singh, Ramavtar, ‘Purva Bharat mei Sikh-Parivar: Punarvash ki Adi-katha’, SriGuru Gobindsingh Traya Satabdi Mahotswab, a souvenir published on the occasion of Guru Gobind Singh Tercentenary Birth Anniversary Celebration by Chota Sikh Sangat, Calcutta 1967, p. 54. Singh was an Assistant Editor of the Hindi newspaper Dainik Viswamitra published from Calcutta. This figure was also endorsed by Sujan Singh, a retired employee of the West Bengal Government (15 March 1999). He was opposed to the gurdwara group headed by Ramavtar Singh. Their total number would be around fourteen thousand and it is scattered in different cities and towns of Bihar and Jharkhand. I am grateful to Devendra Singh, Director, Planning and Development, Institute of Continuing Education, Ranchi for communicating it (17 September 2008). The history of Punjabi-Sikhs had long been an important constituent of our nationalist discourse. On the one hand, they represented the nation of heroes and martyrs in the imagination of Bengali educated middle class. On the other, Agrahari past did not convey any similar heroic message. Compared to PunjabiSikhs of Calcutta, they were not also physically strong and financially rich. Contemporary Bengali writers perhaps find nothing significant or glorifying about them. Timberg, Thomas A, The Marwaris: From Traders to Industrialists, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1978, p. 56; Gupta, Bunny, and Chaliha, Jaya, ‘Barabazar’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ed., Calcutta: The Living City, The Past, Vol.I, Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1990, p. 114; Sinha, Pradip, ‘Calcutta and the Currents of History’, in Ibid., p. 42. Gupta, Samita, ‘Theory and practice of town planning in Calcutta, 1817 to 1912: An appraisal,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXX, No.1, March 1993, pp, 29-35. Another study on Calcutta suggests that the city ‘has never been able to outgrow this over-whelming bazaar environment.’ Munshi, Sunil K, ‘Genesis of the Metropolis’, in Racine, Jan, ed., Calcutta: The city, its crisis and the debate on urban planning and development, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1990, p. 46. My Agrahari friends often reminded me of the value of blood relationship in tiding over many financial difficulties during their early years in Calcutta. My senior informants like Ramavtar Singh, President and Manmouji Singh, General Secretary, Chota Sikh Sangat particularly drew my attention to it. All Agrahari settlements on the western side of Chitpur Road were situated near the river Ganga. P Thankappan Nair’s essay offers an outline of those old areas associated with Agrahari residence in the city. See his ‘The Growth and Development of Old Calcutta’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta, op. cit., pp. 12–23. During these years, Bihar was also seriously affected by numerous economic changes. The steady penetration of the East India Company’s political authority in the post-Plassey decades, the resultant dislocation in overland trade, which passed through major urban centres of Bihar, the strict monopoly of the Company over the cultivation of opium and indigo, the disastrous effects of

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20

21 22

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the famine of 1770, and the introduction of different harsh land revenue demands from 1772 made matters even worse. For the contemporary Bihar scene and the rise of the Company’s power, see Ray, Aniruddha, Transformation of Bihar: European Discourses ( From Late 16 th to Early 18 th Century), Maharajadhiraja Kamalesar Singh Kalayni Foundation, Patna, 2003, pp. 135– 89. For the situation in Purnea which had long been an important centre of Agrahari population, see Guha, Ranajit, A Rule of Property of Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of Permanent Settlement, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 198l, p. 53. An important index of the prosperity of Calcutta was the steady rise in population in the second half of the eighteenth century. See Marshall, P J, East India Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976, p. 24. For the early history of Calcutta of this period, see Sinha, Pradip, Calcutta in Urban History, Firma K L Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, 1978. For the contemporary Bihar scene, see also note 18. The presence of a few important Nanakpanthi-Khatri traders of the early Sikh tradition, their great wealth and close trading relationship with the English East India Company are mentioned in different sources. Perhaps the most important of them was Aminchand and his brother Deepchand of Patna. They played a significant role in Bihar trade during the first half of the eighteenth century. Amichand also helped East India Company’s investment in Bengal during the same period. He, however, fell from power after the Battle of Plassey (1757) and died in 1758. ‘In his will after distributing about Rs 1,60,000 among the members of his family, he gifted away the entire residue as debottur to Sri Govind Nanakji.’ The property that Aminchand ‘left to Sree Govind Nanakji by his will was estimated’ later on ‘as worth 42 lakhs’. His landed estates remained scattered in different parts of north and east Calcutta. It is likely that the contested Sikh gurdwara, at the Bagmari–Maniktala area, stands on one such plot of land donated by Aminchand in his testament. One of his close relatives was Huzurimal (or Hazari Mal) who inherited the bulk of Aminchand’s property. He had his residential palace in Bara Bazaar. We are told that everyday at his residence, a group of around sixteen musicians accompanied by different instruments used to sing Sikh bhajans (devotional songs) referring to the blessings of Akalpurah (God). For details, see Sinha, N K, Economic History of Bengal: From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement, Vol. I, Firma K L Mukhopadhyaya, Calcutta, 1961, pp. 241–7; Datta, K K, Alivardi Khan and His Times, The World Press Private Limited, Calcutta, 1963, pp. 74, 82, 100, 143; Bose, Ananda Krishna, ‘A Short account of the residents of Calcutta in the years 1822,’ in Aloke Ray, ed., Calcutta Keepsake, Riddhi-India, Calcutta, 1978, p. 313; McLane, J R, Land and Local Kinship in Eighteenth Century Bengal, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 131–3, 177; Chaudhury, Sushil, Eighteenth Century Bengal: Prosperity to Decline, Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 1995, pp. 55, 116–20; Mitra, Radharaman, Kolkatta Darpan, Pratham Parba, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, n. d., pp. 278, 288. Information given by Ramavtar Singh, 25 June 2003. Suit No. 91 of 1870 in the Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal. There is hardly any doubt that Raja Huzurimal and Nanakpanthi trader Huzurimal mentioned in note 20 refer to

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23

24

25

26

27

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one and the same person. After the gurdwara was taken over by PunjabiSikhs from Agraharis in the mid-twentieth century, its new management body was keen to give the religious institution ‘a more dignified profile’. They have declared it as one of the historic gurdwaras of eastern India associated with the memory of Guru Nanak’s visit in this part of the country. They have also rejected its past link with Agraharis of Bara Bazaar. Even the name of the founder of the gurdwara (i.e. Raja Huzurimal) is changed into Raja Huzuri Singh thereby making it exclusively a domain of the Khalsa-Sikhs. This deliberate Khalsafication process can be traced in a book authored by Bhai Dalip Singh who had served many of the old gurdwaras of Calcutta for nearly three decades. See his Kalkatta Sathit Itihas Gurdwara ate Panthak Jathebandiya da Sankhep Itihas, The Author, Calcutta, 2000, p. 20. A police report of 1928 includes a list of complaints against Agraharis. See Criminal Intelligence Department, Intelligence Branch, Bengal, Report on the Political Situation and Labour Unrest for the period ending (CID, IB), 21 November 1928. The paragraph is culled from different sources. See, McLeod, W H, Who is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 12–22. For the general activities in a gurdwara, see Bhadra, Gautam, Mughal Juge Krishi Arthaniti o Krishak Vidroh, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1985, p. 183. For the early gurdwara construction on Cross Street and other details, see Suit No. 71 of 1870 mentioned in note 19. It appears from other archival sources that Bara Sikh Sangat remained at 79, Cross Street till September 1923 and was shifted to its present address 172, Mahatma Gandhi Road in early 1926. Also see, Grewal, J S, ‘The Gurdwara’, in Grewal, J S, ed., Religious Movements and Institutions in Medieval India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 533–47. It was a legal battle between Ganesh Singh, Ram Singh and others (plaintiffs) versus Ramgopal Singh (defendant). They were all residing in different localities around Bara Bazaar area. The conflict had been brewing in the mid-1860s. See Suit No. 91 of 1870. Hola-Mahalla-1984 (Satabdi Varsha) – Gurudwara Chota Sikh-Sangat: Cotton Street ebang Gurukabagh (Narkuldanga), Chota Sikh Sangat, Calcutta, 1984, p. 51; Nishan Sahib ki Sthapana ebang Aaya-Byay, 1993-1997, Gurdwara Chota Sikh Sangat, Calcutta, 1998, no pagination. We are not, however, sure whether the name was in use right from the time of the establishment of the gurdwara. It is likely that the name came in circulation later on so that it could be differentiated from the older gurdwara on Mahatma Gandhi Road. For it, see, Suit No. 1127 of 1912. I have seen the copy of the court record in possession of Lal Sing, a resident of Nanak Nivas, Guru-ka-Bagh, Narkeldanga, 22 January 2001. Also see Singh, Ramavtar, op. cit., p. 56. There is no separate estimate for the Sikhs in the census of Bengal of 1872. But the census for the ‘Town Kolkata’ of 1876 points out that Calcutta had a population of only 281 Sikhs of which 63 resided in Fort William. The rest resided in Jorabagan, Jorasanko, Waterloo Street and Kalutola wards. These areas were situated in the central and eastern parts of Calcutta. The report also suggests that the number of women came close to their male counterparts

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in all the wards except Waterloo Street. They were possibly all Agraharis because Punjabi-Sikhs (who were not in the British army) were yet to reach the city in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Report on the Census of the Town of Calcutta, 1876, taken on the 6th April, 1876, Table VII, pp. lxvii–xxi. They had their private gurdwaras. For their location, see the map facing page 169. These gurdwaras were generally well-managed till the first quarter of the twentieth century. Information furnished by Ramavtar Singh, 5 July 2003. I have seen an old photograph of Tara Singh Sangat preserved in the custody of Ramavtar Singh, 24 June 2003. The gurdwara is still there but its landed property has been virtually taken over by the owner of a transport company. Its present occupant did not allow me to enter the gurdwara (situated on Madan Mohan Burman Street). Tara Singh also ‘set up the temple of Shiva Nakuleswar’. Dutta, Kalyani, ‘Kalighat’, in Chaudhuri, Sukatna, op. cit., p. 25. Ramavtar Singh also referred to the prosperity of Munnilal Singh. He was widely known for his expensive lifestyle. Even during his life, Munnilal Singh mortgaged his entire assets including the gurdwara property to creditors. After his death, these were put on sale. It drew the attention of Punjabi-Sikhs who were then actively engaged in the gurdwara politics of Calcutta. They held meetings and tried to save the gurdwara property. Contemporary British Intelligence sources refer to the intervention of Punjabi-Sikhs. CID, IB, 24 July 1929. The same gurdwara is still there but it has passed under the management of PunjabiSikhs. At least three of my Agrahari friends had referred to the prosperity of these men. According to them, they became rich through successful trade mainly in cotton. Besides Ramavtar Singh and Manmouji Singh, I may refer to the testimony of Satnam Singh, the present President, Chota Sikh Sangat, 5 February 2003. See the note above. I also draw attention to the following episode which indirectly suggests their possible link with the local administration. In 1908, a Bengali drama highlighting the glory of Guru Gobind Singh was almost ready for performance in a well-known north Calcutta professional stage. We are told that the drama could not be staged owing to the opposition of a section of the Sikhs, mostly residing in Bara Bazaar–Tulapatty–Mechhua locality which is situated within a radius of two miles from the exact place of its performance. A semi-contemporary Bengali source suggests that they came down to the theatre hall and asked the organizers not to go ahead with the performance because this would offend their religious sentiment. Even after much persuasion, they refused to withdraw from the scene of protest. Incidentally, these were the years of the Swadeshi Movement when the local Bengali Hindu nationalist sentiment reached its high pitch. In this background, it was nothing unlikely that the claim of the microscopic but loyal Agrahari community was backed up by the local administration. Otherwise it would be difficult to conclude that the staging of the drama could be stopped merely due to the opposition of a handful of Agraharis in the city. A part of the experience of this episode may be found in the author’s The Other Sikhs, Vol. 1: A View from Eastern India, Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 2003, p. 154. Their politics would again be taken up in a later part of the essay.

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For example, Tara Singh extended necessary financial support for the renovation of the Kalighat Temple. We are also told that some other rich people used to offer occasional food and shelter to the poorer members of the community who had recently arrived in Calcutta from their native places in Bihar. Ramavtar Singh, 24 June 2003. This steady eastward push of Agraharis in course of the last one hundred and twenty years marks the addition of new areas to their settlement. For the sake of convenience, we may broadly categorize the different stages of Agrahari settlement in the city as follows. The area around Bara Bazaar–Tulapatty– Chitpur Road has already been demarcated as the core area. Next to it is the region around Mahatma Gandhi Road–Mechhua Bazaar–Kolutola area, which has been noted as the periphery. Another phase of settlement can be traced since the closing decade of the nineteenth century near Narkeldanga Main Road (Guru-ka-Bagh) in the eastern part of the city. In early February 1998, they celebrated one gurpurab here through the foundation of a new nishan sahib (70 feet high) replacing the older one for the gurdwara. See Nishan Sahib ki Sthapana ebang Aaya-Byay, 1993-1997, Gurdwara Chota Sangat, Calcutta, no pagination. They have gradually pushed their settlement in Kadapara (Ghorbibi Lane) area (all in eastern part of the city) on a common piece of land held by their gurdwara. It is likely that these lands constituted a part of Aminchand’s property which was dedicated in the name of Guru Nanak. See also note 20. The present Bara Sikh Sangat management board of Punjabi-Sikhs does not recognize that the gurdwara had ever been a property of Agraharis. Dalip Singh who had written a history of the different gurdwaras of Calcutta also made no mention of Bara Sikh Sangat’s link with Agraharis. There are, however, a few records preserved in the custody of Bara Sikh Sangat which refer to Guru-ka-Bagh as one of the many properties of Bara Sikh Sangat. The reference to Guru-ka-Bagh hints at a close link with Agraharis because there is still a gurdwara of a similar name in Patna. It was a quiet area when the gurdwara was founded. In course of the last few decades, it has become a crowded place. Many unauthorized persons have illegally occupied a significant portion of the gurdwara land and constructed their own buildings upon it. Even the water of the sarobar is no longer fit for ablution. I have been to Guru-ka-Bagh on many festive occasions as well as on normal days. There I have always had the impression that the local gurdwara is as good as an integral part of Chota Sikh Sangat. Several members of its management board were present on all major celebrations in Guru-ka-Bagh. I have seen the original document in the collection of Man Singh Grewal, General Secretary, Bara Sikh Sangat (11 November 2001). It is a long handwritten document possibly of the year 1918. Man Singh Grewal allowed me to read the document, but he has so far refused to hand over its copy. It is possibly a mortgage deed pointing out how the early twentieth century Bara Sikh Sangat management board had borrowed money from the local nonSikh traders. That is why I have not been able to quote the exact date and the text of the document. For a brief description of the situation prevailing in Bara

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Sikh Sangat from 1910 onwards, see Daily Desh-Darpan, 13 April 1941, pp. 28– 32. For the causes and impact of Akali struggle in Punjab in the 1920s, see Singh, Mohinder, The Akali Movement, Macmillan, New Delhi, 1978; Fox, Richard G, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making, Archives Publishers, New Delhi, 1987. It was an anti-colonial struggle which resulted in a large-scale Sikh participation against the British in Punjab. We have one contemporary British record listing Punjabi-Sikhs’ complaints against Agrahari ‘mismanagement’ in Bara Singh Sangat. CID, IB, 21 November 1928. We have also a semi-contemporary profile of Agraharis of Bihar. O’ Malley thus wrote: ‘Although the Agraharis have […] retained many of the forms of the Sikh ceremonials, it would be a mistake to suppose that they have kept that religion pure and undefiled […]. They have, in many ways, relapsed into Hinduism though on the other hand, a faithful few strive to remain orthodox [...] while the common class, however, have no scruples in worshipping the images of Hindu gods and in adopting the religious customs of their Hindu neighbours.’ See his ‘The Agraharis of Sasaram’, op. cit., pp. 35–43. It points out how the local world of Agraharis stands differentiated from the Great Tradition of Sikhism of Punjab. There is very little doubt that this view of O’Malley was an outcome of his understanding of Sikhism through the lens of the Singh Sabha reformers. Local Agraharis did not have the experience of the Singh Sabha Movement which resulted in a sharp divide between the Sanatani Sikhs and the Sikhs of the Khalsa in Punjab. Agraharis of Bihar and Jharkhand continued to live in their old Sanatani world. This point would again be reviewed in another part of the essay. Manmouji Singh, General Secretary of Chota Sikh Sangat points out (5 February 2003) that many of their celebrations are based on what has been long in practice in Chacha Phagumal Gurdwara (Sasaram) and Patna Harimandir (both historic gurdwaras associated with the memory of Ninth Guru and Tenth Guru respectively). He argues that Agraharis have no reason to listen to what Punjabi-Sikhs have been saying against their celebrations and rituals. He suggests that these are all widely practised in their ancestral places of worship in Bihar. These forms of celebrations are all relevant and important to their understanding of Sikhism. Agraharis regard them integral because these have emanated from the gurdwaras sanctified by their Guru’s visit. A sizeable section of their younger generation, however, feels shy to refer to these past occurrences in the premises of Chota Sikh Sangat. They are of the view that the majority of them no longer favour these practices. They have even started Sunday Punjabi classes in the same gurdwara building. It refers to those Sikhs who vigorously emphasized that Sikhism is a separate religion from that of Hinduism. See McLeod, Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, pp. 208-9; Oberoi, Harjot, The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994. For the rapid growth of the city during these years, see Keya Dasgupta’s essay ‘Mapping the Spaces of Minorities’ included in the volume. On the coming of different occupational groups and their settlement in Bhawanipur area, see

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Roy Choudhury, Anjana, ‘Caste and Occupation in Bhowanipore’, Man in India, Vol. 44, No. 3, 1964, pp. 207–20; Jai Singh Bedi’s oral testimony (23 June 2002). Earlier Bedi had served the Metro Railway, Calcutta. He spent his younger days in south Calcutta in the 1930s. With the opening of modern automobiles in the city, many Sikhs flocked there. They learnt motor driving and became taxi and bus drivers. Contemporary British sources described them as ‘lower class Sikhs’. According to Khushwant Singh, in 1946, there were 10,000–20,000 Sikh taxi-drivers in the city. For details, see CID, IB, 6 September 1923; Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, 1839-1988, Vol. II, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999, p. 269; Grewal, Hardev Singh, ‘Sou Sal vich Aye Kayi Utra Jhara’, Rojana Navi Parbhat, 29 October 2007. Fox, op. cit., pp. 86–7. Sikh Jat’s inseparable association with izaat figures in the writings of many authorities. In recent times, James Pettigrew’s scholarly contribution merits special attention. See, her Robber Noblemen: A Study of the Political System of the Sikh Jats, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Boston, 1975, pp. 45–6. CID, IB, of the first ten years (1923–32) referred to Punjabi-Sikhs’ conflicting criticisms of Bara Sikh Sangat management board. The meetings were mostly held in Jagat Sudhar as well as Bakul Bagan Road Gurdwara situated in south Calcutta. Even voices of criticism emanated from Bara Sikh Sangat diwans (meetings). It underlines that there was a strong dissenting voice among Agraharis against their leadership. Every year, speeches were made on the day of Guru Nanak’s birthday and the annual Sikh procession on that occasion invariably touched Bara Sikh Sangat premises. There are numerous reports referring to such diwans in contemporary police records. Suit No. 1213 of 1932 quoted in Daily Desh-Darpan, 15 April 1932. The local government also wanted a man of its choice to be the head of Bara Sikh Sangat management board. In 1927, the High Court, Calcutta appointed Sir Sundar Singh Majithia, a moderate Sikh leader of Punjab Legislative Assembly its Receiver. He could not be regularly present in Calcutta. He was therefore replaced by another ruling of the High Court (1932). The new ruling declared Baba Laddha Singh Bedi, a devout rich Sikh contractor, its sole trustee. For his career, see Amrita Bazar Patrika, 9 January 1940. On many occasions Punjabi-Sikhs simultaneously criticized the colonial administration and appealed to their supporters to vote in favour of the Indian National Congress. They also kept strict watch over the legal battle fought in the High Court, Calcutta. CID, IB, 2 May 1928; 17 April 1929; 12 June 1929; 21 August 1929; Daily Desh-Darpan, 13 April 1941, pp. 28–32. Many Congress leaders, including Subhas Chandra Bose, maintained close relationship with the local Punjabi-Sikh leadership. Bose also addressed their diwans. See, CID, IB, 4 January 1928, 12 February 1930 and 5 September, 1931. Like Agraharis, these Sikhs were therefore not a homogeneous group. These protestors were not all Akalis. There were Communists like Genda Singh and Bir Singh as well as pro-Congress followers like Niranjan Singh Talib who later on became a minister in the Kairon Cabinet in Punjab during the post-independence years and Kartar Singh Kanjla, who was imprisoned owing to his active involvement

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in the removal of the Holwell Monument agitation of 1940. Also see Roy, Ranjit Kumar, ‘Sikh Participation in Calcutta Urban Politics: A Case Study of Simon Commission Boycott’, Proceedings of Indian History Congress: 59th Session, 1998, Indian History Congress, Calicut, 1999, pp. 716–23. Oral testimony of Ramavtar Singh, 26 June 2003.He particularly referred to the flourishing cotton trade of Iswar Singh and Bechu Singh and showed their photographs. They had a shop in the name of I Singh & B Singh at New Market, Calcutta. This was later corroborated by Sambhu Singh, grand son of Bechu Singh. He is presently the owner of a very well-known tailoring shop in south Calcutta (22 September 2005). For contemporary Calcutta situation, see Rajat K Ray, Urban Roots of Indian Nationalism: Pressure Groups and Conflict of Interest in Calcutta City Politics, 18751939, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1979, pp. 134–8. Ramavtar Singh pointed out (5 July 2003) that all account books of Chota Sikh Sangat and Tara Sikh Sangat were written in Bengali in the 1930s. Even the original foundation stone of the nishan sahib of Guru-ka-Bagh was written in Bengali. His (Ramavtar Singh’s) wife used to write him letters in Bengali. Others like Pannalal Singh, Bechu Singh and Madhusudan Singh of Chota Sikh Sangat of the first half of the twentieth century were all in favour of keeping gurdwara accounts in Bengali because they were all educated in Bengali medium schools. Manmouji Singh also confirmed the point (22 October 2003). Suranjan Das, in his study, also points out that the ‘desecration’ of ‘sacred spots’ of different communities took place on a larger scale during the riot of 1926. For it, see Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905-1947, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 86–7. For a comparative perspective, see Matwala, 10 April 1926, p. 805. See the author’s essay, ‘Kolkatar Sikh’, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Patrika, Vol. 108, Nos.1–4, pp. 71–93. Ramavtar Singh was one of those few Agraharis who had participated in the Quit India Movement (1942). His father Gurdev Singh had the license of supplying certain cotton textile products to the Indian Railways. He was opposed to his son’s joining the national movement. Ramavtar Singh left his education at the school level and attended the Ramgarh Session (1938) of the Congress. Later on he passed the matriculation examination as a private candidate (Ramavtar Singh, 5 July 2003). See also, Kolkata Ebang Sasaram ka Sardar Paribar, Dadaji Sardar Ramavtar Singh ki Assibiwi Barshganta par Prapta Subha Kamanyen, Saradar Parivar, Calcutta 2006. Dainik Viswamitra, 13 April 1936, quoted in Gurdwara Chota Sikh Sangat Dwitiya Prabandha Mandal ke Karya-Kal mei hue Karyon ka Vivaran ebang Aai-Byai, Chota Sikh Sangat, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 37–8. Taking advantage of the communal holocaust of August 1946, Punjabi-Sikhs pounced upon their weaker Sikh brothers in the name of defending the local Hindus from the hands of Calcutta Muslims. One may get a glimpse of their grim muscle power politics of the 1940s in many of the structural incongruities of the present day Munnilal Sikh Sangat. The gurdwara is situated on Mahatma Gandhi Road on way to Howrah Railway Station. This was originally an Agrahari gurdwara wrested by the present day Punjabi-Sikh management

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board during the Calcutta riot of 1946. My visit as well as the communication of Santokh Singh (22 January 2003), a gurdwara staff, confirms the point. Actually some of the most seriously affected places in the Calcutta riot of 1946 were the areas inhabited by Agraharis. See Das, Suranjan, op. cit., p. 173. See also Map 5 on the same page which shows the areas affected in the riot of 1946. The adjoining areas marked 6 and 7 of the same map almost corresponded with the core regions of Agrahari settlement in central Calcutta. Then again on page 87, Das points out that Muslims of Mechhua area were ‘encouraged to rise up against Hindus’. Perhaps here Sikhs were bracketed with Hindus. Suit No. 38 of 1954, held in the Court of the Fifth Magistrate, Alipur Court. Also the oral testimony of Manmouji Singh, the former General Secretary, Chota Sikh Sangat (4 June 2003). In 1962, he was elected the General Secretary. An important source of my information is Satnam Singh (born in 1925) who had served as the Receiver of the Calcutta District Court of these years. He had a flourishing business of printing calendars and his shop was situated on Chitpur Road. He was acceptable to both the contending groups. He was sometimes the President, Chota Sikh Sangat and has kindly furnished other necessary details on the ongoing tussle for power in Agrahari community. Even today, two teachers of the Vidyalaya and their few remaining friends play the role of the opposition to Chota Sangat management board in Agrahari Samaj. Oral testimony of Ashoke Singh, Assistant Teacher, Guru Nanak Vidyalaya (21 June 2002) bears this out. Singh was elected General Secretary, Chota Sikh Sangat. Pritam Singh, another senior member of Agrahari Samaj also confirms this point of view (13 April 2003). In a recent election of Agrahari Samaj, he is however replaced by Prakash Singh who is close to Manmouji Singh and has long served Chota Sikh Sangat in the post-independence years. This is based on my field work with Agraharis. See also note 10. A significant part of their residential areas as well as gurdwaras (Upper Chitpur Road-Mechhhua) are situated almost at a shake hand distance from the different mosques and temples of the locality. Here they would face more than four mosques and five temples on their way to Chota Sikh Sangat situated on the western side of Upper Chitpur Road. Dusenbery, op. cit., p. 5. A section of Punjabi-Sikhs have tried to learn lessons from the past intolerance of their predecessors. They appreciate the distinctiveness of Agraharis in the local Sikh world. They have recently started Punjabi schools for teaching young Agrahari boys and girls so that they may read Gurbani in their original language. It is perhaps an attempt to understand the message of regional distinctiveness and simultaneously focusing Sikhism in a wider pan-Indian context. In this regard, Jagmohan Singh Gill, General Secretary, Central Gurdwara Committee, West Bengal and some of his friends have shown keen interest. For a similar unfortunate experience in Mumbai, see Sunday Times of India , 22 June 2008. ‘The ethnic map of Calcutta […] shows a highly differentiated texture. Ethnic groups tend to cluster together in their own quarters [...] Because there are not enough jobs to go around, everyone clings as closely as possible to the

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occupation with which his ethnic group is identified and relies for economic support on those who speak his language, on his coreligionists, on members of his own caste and on fellow immigrants from the village or district from which he has come. By a backwash, reliance on earlier modes of group identification reinforces and perpetuates differences between ethnic groups.’ Bose, Nirmal Kumar, ‘Calcutta: A Premature Metropolis’, Scientific American, 1965, Vol. 213, No. 3, p. 102.

The Bohra community at Calcutta listening to the Syedna. Photograph Courtesy: Mudar Patherya, Calcutta.

Chapter 10 A JOURNEY INTO MY NEIGHBOURHOOD: THE BOHRA COMMUNITY OF CALCUTTA1

Sarvani Gooptu A familiar sight in the area I live in, Central Calcutta, are Bohra families dressed in their distinctive robes, keeping very much to themselves as they carry on with their busy lives. Despite the fact that some of the biggest shops and showrooms of the area are owned by them, their lives and thoughts have always stayed an enigma to me. When I decided to research on this intriguing subject, I immediately faced a block. There is very little secondary material in the libraries on the Bohra community per se and the few books that are available are on the community in Gujarat and Rajasthan.2 There is none on the Calcutta Bohras. This is because none of the leading Bohras of Calcutta have left any account of their migration to the city or on their work here. I began by conducting interviews with some of the leading members of their society to understand the basic features of the community and their beliefs. They candidly admit that there is very little written documentation on the Bohras of Calcutta in English and whatever there is, is in Gujarati or in Lisaan-ud-Dawat which is their religious language – Deen-i-Zabaan. Thereafter I concentrated on circulating questionnaires within the community to get a broader view. My aim in this chapter is to bring into focus the distinctiveness of the culture and also show that there is no dichotomy within them between their ‘modernity’, a term by which they mean ‘use of advanced technology’, and their deep religiosity.

I The Bohras subscribe to the fundamental doctrines of the Ismaili Shia faith, and from the eleventh century proselytizing missions were sent to

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Sind and Cambay. According to the Mausam-e-Bahar, considered by the Bohras to be their authentic history, these missionaries had no political ambition. This has been corroborated by a later historian, Satish Chandra Misra who says that the foundation of the Ismaili community in Gujrat is unique since the penetration was peaceful.3 Bohra or vohrwu or vyahwar means ‘to transact or trade in Gujrati’. According to Shibani Roy, the main converts were from the higher castes, even Brahmins, who were engaged in trading. She even refers to the presence of Hindu Bohras.4 According to Asghar Ali Engineer, the Ismaili sect which developed in the feudal environment of Persia also developed a religious hierarchy which had an appeal for certain classes in India. Thus, the middle classes and sub-castes like the traders, who had differences with not only the ruling feudal nobility but also with those who were lower in the caste hierarchy, were more inclined to adopt a hierarchal faith like Ismailism.5 From Gujarat the Bohras migrated to different parts of India over the years. The Calcutta Bohras originate from different districts like Surat, Khambat, Nagar Haveli, Dadra, Palampur, Kapparvanch, Godhra, Burhanpur etc., leading to differences in dialects, styles of dressing and manners of eating. About 25 Bohra families came over to Calcutta in the late nineteenth century to trade in tea, sugar and spices, and the pace of migrations increased with the establishment of the railways. In 1921, the first masjid was established in Calcutta. The first families to migrate came on hand carts and were given the surname ‘Bengali’, which still survives. Their surnames do not give any indication of hierarchy, caste or otherwise, but only refers to the place of origin or migration to, or occupation. The areas where the Bohras have mostly settled in Calcutta are Chandni Chowk, Zakaria Street, Ripon Street, Park Circus and Howrah. They are still basically a trading community with the majority maintaining small businesses. When they migrated here, they mainly concentrated on hardware and machinery but later proliferated into other trades. Some of the leading cloth merchants of Calcutta today are Bohras, like J S Mohamedally. The Bohri business instinct has now led the younger generations into the lucrative computer and IT frontiers, and most of the businesses are of a transnational nature. There are very few Bohras in service though most of them are educated in the general degree courses in the mainstream schools and colleges. They are also not very visible in the field of art and literature in Calcutta. There are about 4,000 Bohras in Calcutta today and 750 shops belonging to them with monopoly in hardware and textile. In the course of my research, what I found very surprising was that, after completion of education, most of the Bohras seem to fade away from

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the lives of their classmates, whether Hindu or Muslim. It is their exclusivity, even from their co-religionists, that is most striking. Though basically belonging to the Shia Ismaili sect, the Bohras set themselves apart from their co-religionists due to the close rapport they have with their head, the Syedna. There are many sects even within the Bohra community due to different branches arising from non-acceptance of the Syedna whose followers are called Dawoodi. The Suleimani, Jafari and Aliyah sects seceded from the Dawoodis in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries over the question of succession of the Syedna. The vast majority of the Bohras in Calcutta are Dawoodi and followers of the Syedna, the present one being the 52nd Dai Dr Syedna Md Burhanuddin. Though he resides in Bombay, his presence is overwhelming over his flock all over the world. There is very good communication between the Dawoodi Bohras worldwide through their website. Obedience to the Syedna, which is initiated with the misaq or initiation ceremony at maturity for both boys and girls, continues throughout life, and even the smallest change is made with the permission – raza – of the Syedna. This way of life that has been ‘set’ out for the believer, ‘mumineen’ is the Bohra deen, though the religion they ascribe to officially is Islam. This total trust and belief in the Syedna is inculcated from a young age through compulsory religious education. The secret of the power that the Syedna holds over the Bohra mind is their belief that the Syedna has a hidden connection (rohani) with the Imam, who is a direct successor of the Prophet but who is no longer visible. This has given the Syedna immense power by which he can guide the community in every sphere of life. This belief is strengthened through his representatives in the locality. These representatives are selected by the Syedna from the graduates of the Jaamiya Safia of Surat, a Seminary for the Bohras, for a particular task for which he is given the raza by the Syedna. It is a hierarchical gradation – Aqa Maula – Mazoom – Muqasir. The administration of the Calcutta Anjum, as the Bohra community in Calcutta is called, is under the Amil who looks after his congregation from the Bohra mosque on Pollock Street. The language in which all the written communication is made between the religious leaders and the faithful is Lisaan-ud-Dawat. It is a mixture of Arabic and Gujarati. All the Bohras can understand and more or less read the language, though most of them cannot write it. What is interesting is that the young children can. While for the generation above 30, religious education was considered good but not mandatory, for their children the deeni education is compulsory. I noticed that the children are far more well-versed in the subjects they study at the madrassa on Park Lane, than their parents who know the history only from what is part of the namaz.

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The syllabus in the madrassa includes five subjects – Turbiyat-ul-Diniyat (on the maulas), Lisamut-Dawat (miracles attributed to the Prophet), Lisamut-Arbi (meanings of Qoran), Dua-Hiz (prayers), and Tehsaan-ul-Khat (copying the Qoran). The children are not only more knowledgeable, their parents claim that they are far more conscientious about namaz timings and about wearing the prescribed clothes. It is now compulsory for every child to have a certificate from the madrassa before they are eligible for the misaq. The Bohras are very easily distinguishable by the special dress they wear. Most of the women wear rida whenever they leave the house while the men wear the topi or cap which is white crocheted with golden thread on the edges. They wear the formal dress without fail to the masjid and the Jamaatkhana, where they gather for all religious and social functions. For men this consists of a white pajama kurta and a high collar cloak-like dress – saya, complete with the topi. Women wear a tucked in T-shirt, and petticoat with a two-piece dress, all of the same colour, one covering the whole body and the other covering the head with a flap hanging behind and strings for tying under the chin. Their faces are not covered. This is the rida which is mostly of a light pastel shade. Though they are Shias, Dawoodis never wear black, not even during Muharram. The rida has embroidery work or lace on the edges. The young girls before misaq wear zabla, which is a salwar kameez with embroidery or lace work and a scarf or a dupatta or a topi decorated with bead or zari work. The men always wear the saya when they visit the Jamaatkhana for an occasion, but the women have different ridas for different occasions and different climates. Some even wear matching socks. The houses of the Bohras are very clean and uncluttered. It is a religious obligation for them. It is the only sect in India which holds tahara (cleanliness, purity) as one of the seven pillars of the faith.6 The Bohras have a very close connection with the masjid. The Syedna has given a raza to the Imam in Calcutta to act as his deputy, who again authorizes the Amil to lead the prayers at the Bohra Masjid. The Bohras pay a number of taxes – Zakat (tax on movable and immovable property payable by all Muslims to the Masjid), Sila (on work done), Fitra (a percentage based on the number of family members during Ramzaan), Nazar Muqam (vow for difficult times), Haqqun Hafs (by the relatives of the deceased), Khums (business), and Salam (personal offering to the Syedna).7 The service and the azaan or call for prayers of the Bohras are different from other Muslims. All the Bohras congregate at the Pollock Street mosque for prayers, especially on Friday as well as on special occasions like the anniversaries of the Dais etc., or during Ramzaan and

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Muharram. During these occasions, they attend prayers with their whole family and partake of their congregational meals at the masjid and Jamaatkhana. Both Muharram and Eid are celebrated on a fixed date, which never coincides with the Eid or Muharram of other Muslims. Since they have only one masjid and the Bohras are slowly scattering all over Calcutta due to their expanding businesses, the announcements of the evening prayers might not be audible far enough to reach all. A unique system has been instituted to transcend this problem. A calendar has been prepared from Bombay with different times for namaz according to local time, which must be adhered to. A list of important occasions, when the whole family must be present at the masjid, is also provided in the calendar. This lunar calendar was prepared during the Fatimid rule in Egypt by expert astronomers employed by the ruling Imams.8 It is for this reason that the Bohras celebrate Eid and other festivals a day or two earlier than other Muslim sects. Unlike other Muslim sects even women attend the services at the masjid. During the fasting at Ramzaan and the Muharram mourning, they spend a great deal of time at the masjid in religious discussions and reading. They are encouraged to pursue education and business. Women also find place in the infrastructure of the Dawat or the religious hierarchy, and there have been two women performing high in the priestly order as Mash Khiat and eight as Mulla and Mashaiq. The community is very mosquecentred and congregate there for all occasions – social or religious. The marriage ceremony as well as the feasting is held in the masjid which is able to handle the catering for the entire community of 5,000. After the death of a Bohri, the immediate mourning period of three days is also spent in the masjid and fire is not lit in the house of mourning. After 40 days, again a prayer ceremony is held at the masjid to mark the end of the mourning. The birth of a child is announced during the azaan. Then on the sixth day, the naming ceremony takes place. The paternal aunt names the child who is dressed in a kurti, cap and silver bangles. At the time set by the Syedna, the name is whispered in the right ear of the child and only the father knows it initially. Next, after a shorter azaan, the name is repeated in the left ear and then the mother comes to know. The birth hair of the child has religious implications and may be removed on the seventh, fourteenth or twenty-first day, when a goat is sacrificed and the blood placed on the child’s head. After 40 days, another ritual bath takes place. A number of rules were set down for the Bohras in the Mausam-e-Bahar of Mirat-i-Ahmadi and these rules under the guidance of the Syedna are followed by them. Once the misaq ceremony has initiated a Bohra into

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the religious life, he or she must follow the rules which cover more or less all aspects of his life – regular praying of namaz even at the work place, fasting during Ramzaan, performing Haj and visiting other pilgrimage sites, paying zakat or religious tax and other taxes; prohibition of fine arts and literary activities as well as intermarriage with Sunnis There are strict commensality rules, and the Bohras always eat together at the thaal – eight people eat from the same plate using only fingertips. It is possible that to emphasize lack of caste consciousness among the converts that such a commensality rule was introduced. What is unique is that it is still maintained today. They start with a pinch of salt which is said to fight all diseases, then the dessert, followed by the savoury which is the meat and then the main dish which is rice-based, and at the end they have salt again. Some of their specialities are the thuli, which is wheat dalia 9 with jaggery, sweet and salty samosas, kebaabs or fried meat balls and khajla barfi.10 The Bohras generally avoid beef and dead fish. At all times when the Bohras sit, and especially during eating, they sit with their legs folded under their body so that the feet never face the thaal. This ensures that no disrespect is shown to the food. When I went to their madrassa, I saw nursery children eating tiffin together like a thaal, though from their own tiffin boxes. The teachers watched carefully to see that they follow the commensality rules – like washing their hands before and after the meal in a common wash pot, eating with the finger tips or sitting properly so that no part of their legs are visible and the cover on their heads strictly in place. The Bohras are by and large educated and employed and the strict adherence to the norms set by the Syedna in dress, religious practice and general behaviour does not appear to hamper their mixing with the general mainstream of society. Through the Jamaat or community elders, attempts are made to make education and other facilities available to the needy among the Bohras. There are a number of voluntary organizations set up by the Jamaat for the purpose – like the Anjuman-e-Burhani and the HizbeHussaini. Though their main school Saifee Hall may have been set up for maintaining exclusivity, it is no longer true now. Not only are there nonBohra students and teachers in the school but Bohras have always used mainstream educational institutions. Initially Saifee Hall was co-educational but now it is so only for the nursery section. A separate building has been made for a girls school which also houses a hostel. The Madrassa is coeducational and most Bohra boys and girls who study in other schools come here after school for their religious education. But once the misaq ceremony takes place, the Bohras submit to segregation in the masjid and public functions. So there are separate associations for men and women

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and for the youth. Like the Shabab-ul-Idiz-Zahabi and the Hizbe-Hussaini for men, there are the Saifee Women, Bunaitul Idiz Zahati and Ladies Burhaniya for women, the Telebaat for young men and the Telebaat-ulQulliyat for young girls.

II The Bohras are a business community and their focus has remained the same over the past century in Calcutta. In the field of trading, 1979 was a watershed for the Bohras. A large seminar was organized at Surat and a corpus was constituted by the Syedna for trading. Previously, working capital from private moneylenders used to be put in to create a savings scheme. This newly created corpus was a network of registered charitable localized lending trusts spread all over the country and coordinated under the aegis of Mumbai’s Burhani Qardan Hasana Trust (BQHT). This has a paid up corpus of Rs 35 crores and its more than 40 sister organizations have a capital of tens of crores of rupees each. Documentation of a loan includes a pledge, submission of collateral papers, promissory notes or post-dated cheques like any financial transaction, but without any interest being charged. The network has a spiritual foundation, – it seeks to revive and spread the practice of doing business without paying, taking or calculating interest. The funding for the operation comes from many sources. In case a person runs into difficulties with his repayment, there is a system of guarantors which helps to minimize the scope for default. Widespread default caused by disasters could disrupt the entire support network, and to minimize this risk the lending trusts rely on well-wishers and other means of support. At times, the central trust of the community spiritual leadership contributes to the corpus so that no worthy candidate is turned away. Another unique arrangement allows individuals to place their idle money as interest-free short term deposits or amanat. Generally these are paid in multiples of Rs 5000. Community members also support the Trust through a token donation of Rs 215. The central Trust and the amanat help the system tide over mismatches in the credit liability cycle. To defray the administrative and other expenses, the lending institutions have investments in properties that generate revenues through rental. Funding is provided not only to traders but to agriculturists as well. The difference is that support to agriculturists is mainly for purchase of equipment while funds given to traders usually help them to tide over working capital requirements rather than asset acquisition. An 18-member committee runs the network’s computerized accounting system. If there is a demand for

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such a support system from any location or if members report a community that can be uplifted through a system of interest-free funding, a lending trust will be set up. No law can get an individual to repay money. The repayment has to come from a spiritual commitment. According to the Bohra philosophy, releasing an individual from the bond of interest-income or payment blesses those who provide this escape. Individuals extending credit without interest are also blessed. At the same time, each and every member of the community is urged to become an entrepreneur rather than seek employment. From this contributory corpus, turns could be taken to loan money at zero per cent interest. Collateral is worked out. The interest comes with guidelines to prevent exploitation. The Syedna’s contribution is non-withdrawable. About 40 crores have been supplied by him to the centralized corpus which is international. To be eligible to apply for loan, business plans must be submitted for scrutiny to the 18member committee which consists of men with banking experience. The committee is also responsible for disbursement and collection of funds. Once the plans are submitted, the committee studies it to check if the plan is unethical, immoral, speculative or dangerous from the point of view of business. The money is then disbursed with speed so that the business opportunity is not lost. There is very little corruption and no bad debt since the guarantor is alert and the social structure geared to drive the business. Involved in this is a strong belief in the masoomiyat (innocence) of the Syedna – that he is incapable of sin. The security that the community provides to all its members is probably the very basis of the trust that binds the individual members of the community together. They believe that the innate religious discipline that the youth acquire is a positive factor. The kinship bonding of the community transcending territorial boundaries of nation states is another phenomenal feature of the Bohras.

III For the past two decades, a noticeable change within the community was focussed upon by contemporary newspapers. This was most evident in the increased strictness of maintenance of formal rules of dress and manners as commanded by the Syedna. My survey has revealed that the younger generation is much keener than their parents (in the age group of 35–50) to observe the norms. The parents feel that this is due to the charisma of the present Syedna Burhanuddin, who has been able to convince the youth regarding the ‘benefits’ of following his guidance. The youth too, as is

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evident from the interviews, are convinced that this is true because there is no unemployment among the Bohras. What strikes one who comes into contact with the Bohras is the amazing ease with which they handle their exclusivity. They feel no awkwardness in being ‘different’ from the others, be they other Muslims or other religious communities they are in daily contact with. To the question of what they feel about other Muslims, most of the Bohras wrote that other Muslims are backward because they don’t have proper guidance by a single person. The history of persecution of Bohras as heretics in the hands of the Sunniruling powers and the discrimination against them by the Urdu-speaking elites may have resulted in this sense of alienation. I circulated a questionnaire among the non-Bohra Muslims to find out their reaction to the Bohra customs and beliefs and realized that other than what they see, which is the dress and their regular visits to the mosque, they know nothing about the Bohras. What is interesting is that many of them have studied in schools like Saifee Hall with the Bohras but have not maintained even the slightest contact with them. In fact, the reasoning of some of the less educated was that the Bohras are different because they are ‘Hindu converts’, – some even referred to them as ‘Hindus’. There is a hospital established by the Bohras called the Rahmatbai Vadnagarwala hospital on Ganesh Chandra Avenue; but since the Bohras are in general very well off financially, they avail of the best medical facilities in the city. Their exclusivity creates certain drawbacks which need to be dealt with in the future. The insularity of the community prevents it from organizing any charity outside the community. They are not social activists. There is a sense of diffidence among the Bohras which prevents them from mixing freely with people of other communities. Finally, as one of the leading Bohras pointed out, the community has perhaps become too focussed on material well-being and has lost out on development in other spheres. There is no encouragement from the community on acquiring specialized training in literature or fine arts, though in recent years there has been a focus on higher and specialized education. There is also no stress on sports or leisure activities. But from the questionnaire I circulated among Bohra students, it appeared that many candidly admit that they take an interest in art and music. However, there was no affirmative to the query on whether they had received any training in fine arts. From the mid-1950s to the 1980s, there used to be a regular outing for the Bohras at a cricket field in the Calcutta Maidan, but this has been discontinued due to various reasons. There seems to be no conflict in their minds about what is considered the age-old contradiction between modernity and austere religiosity. Almost

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all the Bohras are educated, including women, and most of the women are employed as well. They have a high standard of living, especially when compared to other Muslims of Bengal. Yet, even the most ‘modernized’ of them take pride in strict adherence to the dictates of their religious leader. In interviews, parents of young children informed me that though training in arts was not encouraged, if the children were talented, they could pursue it privately. Therefore, when I heard of an art exhibition by a Bohra artist Amerji, I was intrigued. He appeared to be a bit unconventional since he was well versed in Urdu. He not only read and spoke in it but also composed patriotic verses. He has a collection of paintings on Mirza Ghalib’s ghazals. The entire art collection displayed at this exhibition was based on religious motifs and icons, an obvious compromise with his unconventionality. There is of course a small section of the deviants who feel irked by the rigidity of the rules and the ‘autocratic’ control of the Syedna. I have seen their writings and their complaints on the Internet and the Bohra Chronicle. One theme that seems to recur is the accusation that the Bohras are not Muslims. This is not only the view of non-Bohra Muslims who are intimidated by the differences in the lifestyle and religious practices of the Bohras. The editorial of Bohra Chronicle of June 2002 speaks of an occasion after the riots in Gujarat (February–March 2002) where some Bohras in Gujarat, allegedly on the instigation of the Syedna, announced they were non-Muslims. It was reported in the English daily Indian Express and the Hindi daily Pratakal on 4 April 2002 that a group of Dawoodi Bohras in Gujarat claimed that they are: ‘Not Hindus. No. Not Muslims either. They are Dawoodi Bohras caught in the crossfire. We do break bread with them but marriages are taboo. They offer namaz five times a day, we do it only thrice; our mosques are also different.’ The Reformist Bohras are indignant that no corrective statement was issued regarding this claim from Syedna’s side either. They have come up with a correction themselves: In fact any one who follows the basic principles of Islam and believes in Allah, His book the Quran and His Prophet, Mohammed (PBUH) is a Muslim. Dawoodi Bohras are very much believers of these three essentials and are, therefore Muslims. They also believe in Walayat of Hazrat Ali and therefore they are a sub-sect of Shia Muslims. They combine Zohar and Isha prayers and again Asar and Magrib prayers and pray five times prayers in three times. But they do observe all five prayers. Their mosques are known as masjids and not by any other name like temple, church or synagogues. They believe in five pillars of Islam, Wehdat, Salat, Zakat, Haj and Jihad. So it is wrong to say that they are not Muslims.

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The indignation of the Reformist Bohras is expressed in this and many other editorials of the Bohra Chronicle: Being a business community it is true that by and large the Bohra community is a peace-loving community. It is unfortunate that their present religious heads have adopted a life of luxury and in order to amass wealth they have imposed several un-Islamic taxes and practices on the followers. In order that their followers do not mix with other Muslims and know the true Islam they make systematic efforts.

One of the leaders of this reforming Bohra group is Asghar Ali Engineer. The Bohras are very techno-savvy and keep contact with the outside world via the net. The Madrassa is fully equipped with computers and so is the masjid. During Muharram, Syedna’s discourses are telecast live via their private network, VPN – Virtual Private Network. This combination of modernity with religiosity is what they consider the keystone of success. That the Bohra community of Calcutta has been able to achieve total eradication of poverty and illiteracy and have used their brotherhood rules, which they call the guidance of the Syedna, to help those who are less developed educationally or financially, is the fruit of their total belief, and this I feel helps them to persevere in the Bohra deen. Territorial boundaries do not present barriers to the Bohras. It is close kinship ties through a sense of belonging to their community that is important. Perhaps, that is why the exclusivity and rigidity in outward appearance is so painstakingly maintained. With the migration that had once started from Gujarat and have now become a worldwide one, this community takes pride in its transnationality. Their modernity is reflected in this breaking down of territorial barriers with the help of technology. One significant example can be seen in the system of fixing marriages. Arranged marriages take into consideration only one criterion – that they should be Dawoodi Bohras only, no matter where they stay, within the country or outside. Many of the couples in Calcutta have come together from different parts of the country and even abroad through the Bohra international marriage committee. No matter where they are brought up, all the Bohras know Gujarati or Lisaan-ud-Dawat which makes communication easy. The question that intrigues any researcher on the Bohras is how the youth of the sect adapt so easily to the extremely strict rules of behaviour. The conclusion that I have reached is that for the community members irrespective of age and sex, the benefits of ‘belonging’ far outweigh the difficulties. There is a realization that the community will take care of them when the going gets tough. As one of them said, even if a person has no family, a Bohra’s burial will be undertaken by the community. I also

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witnessed a unique case when an old lady with no immediate family present in town had a different, previously unknown, visitor every day attending her at the nursing home so that she did not suffer from loneliness. Other visible benefits are the lack of unemployment, beggary or crime. There is also the trust that the Syedna and the community will help any failing enterprise, so there is no economic insecurity. The high degree of technical advancement of the community members compensates for outward uniformity and conformity. Their mental conditioning teaches that tradition dictates every action and the disciplining is easily accepted because there is a belief in the power of their leader to solve all problems, business as well as personal. They also feel that they are totally free from the ills that beset other Muslim communities because of this trust in the leadership of one person. There are no criminals or terrorists among the Bohras, and in fact no fanatics either. This is because there is a division between the exoteric and esoteric parts of their religious belief. They have left the batin or the esoteric to be guarded by the religious heads and the general Bohra public does not discuss it at all. They take pride in their exclusivity and consider national boundaries totally irrelevant in today’s world. What finally emerges from this study of this unique community is their ability to reconcile the apparently divergent worlds of techno-savvy modernity with the strict disciplining that belonging to the community demands.

NOTES 1

2

3 4 5 6

This research would not have been possible without the help of Saifee and Rashida Barochwala, Nadira, Shalini, Roqaiya Bengali, Bazat Bengali, Aquil Basrai, Amer-ji and others. My heartfelt thanks to Nayeem Anis for helping me with my initial research and for distributing the questionnaires, and also to my Research Assistants in JU for working on the secondary materials. Above all, to Mudar Patherya I must acknowledge my sincerest gratitude for his unstinted help and cooperation, without which my journey would have been impossible. Some of the works dealing with the Bohras of western India are Engineer, Asghar Ali, The Bohras, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1980; Mishra, Satish C, Muslim Communities in Gujarat, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1961; Roy, Shibani, The Dawoodi Bohras: An Anthropological Perspective, B R Publishers, Delhi, 1984. Mishra, Satish C, op. cit. Roy, Shibani, op. cit., Introduction. Engineer, Asghar Ali, op. cit., p. 104. Ibid., p. 148.

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Ibid., p. 156. Ibid., p. 161. Slightly broken wheat, which can be cooked without crushing entirely. An Indian sweetmeat made of vermicelli and milk.

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Guru Govindan Kutty and Guru Thankumani Kutty at the Suruchi Sangha of Behala during the making of the Durga idols. Photograph Courtesy: Anandabazar Patrika.

Chapter 11 ‘SOUTH INDIANS’ IN CALCUTTA: EXPERIENCES IN CULTURAL PROCESSES

Nandini Bhattacharya Much of the infrastructure and general atmosphere of Calcutta is heir to the colonial institutions and the mentality born out of colonial history. As a cosmopolitan city Calcutta experiences the presence of a sizeable section of people from other provinces of India. These people from other ethnolinguistic backgrounds migrated here in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This mixed composition staying away from their homelands are usually clubbed together by the Calcuttan under a common blanket term – ‘non-Bengalis’. Of these non-Bengalis, a sizeable section belongs to the different South Indian communities. To begin with, let us admit a common misnomer or a faulty identification of all South Indian people as ‘Madrasis’. E M S Nambudiripad’s reaction to the use of such a loose term was: The Madrasi, or the South Indian, is in the eyes of an ordinary North-Indian, one type of Indian, just like the Bengali, the Punjabi etc. The entire people of Madras or South India are to them the same.1

This common mistake has a historical reason probably. The temporary or permanent migration from different South Indian provinces to different parts of Northern India began with the colonial governance. At that time, all the officials or functionaries from any of the four South Indian provinces represented the ‘Madras Presidency’. The use of such a mistaken blanket term is outdated now and it is the rather loosely-bound, though at least geographically correct term, the ‘South Indian’, which still remains in vogue. That this broad-based term includes four distinctive linguistic entities, namely, Tamils from Tamil Nadu, Kannadigas from Karnataka, Malayalese from Kerala and Telugus from Andhra Pradesh is a fact quite commonly understood by now.

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No comprehensive history has, as yet been written about the nature and pattern of immigration, settlement and occupation of the people coming from the various provinces of South India. Since Calcutta did not carry any pre-colonial urban identity like Delhi, a very definite trajectory can be drawn for the study of immigration of any community to this newborn city. Thus, the initial migration can be traced to the nineteenth century when this thriving centre of commerce and seat of power drew people from various regions in search of different occupations. There developed an awareness about the presence of the ‘non-Bengalis’ in different pockets of the city, attached to specific kinds of occupations from the late colonial period. Each community was often given a stereotyped image in the general Bengali mindset, a result of various kinds of over-generalization. In the popular perception, the image of the ‘South Indian’ does not carry derogatory connotations. In spite of huge differences between the Bengali and the ‘South Indian’, beginning with the geographical distance and the linguistic diversity, the sense of alienation and otherness seem to be less. Instead, the Bengali attitude towards the ‘non-Bengalis’ coming in larger number from the neighbouring provinces was, and still is, much more stigmatized. The Bengali perception, though imperfect and biased, provide an indication of the social milieu of the people coming and earning their livelihood in this growing metropolis. Thus, the immigrants from the far South, with their reasonably good socio-economic status and educational background, demanded respectability in the English-educated urban Bengali mind. A sense of affinity in the occupational sphere brought opportunities of interaction in the public domain between the educated Bengalis and the South Indians residing in Calcutta. Acceptance and respectability followed gradually as the Bengali middle class bhadralok perceived among the South Indians many who were their professional counterparts in the government offices. It would of course be rather misleading to try to find homogeneity within such a diverse community. Yet, a popular image develops out of the daily visibility and interaction. This is then coupled with the available information to create the ‘image’. The stereo-type of the South Indians in Calcutta was largely due to the fact that the majority of them came from educated and well to do backgrounds and were therefore accepted with respect in this city. Right from the colonial days, the purpose of emigration of these people were the occupational engagements. These occupations could be broadly divided into three categories: 1) Many were service holders in government and non-government sectors. Though numerically small, the presence of this group is felt in many significant spheres – the government administration, banking and

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other transferable jobs, in corporate sectors as successful professionals, or in financial houses as well as in engineering and technological fields. 2) Some were engaged in private businesses. They came at a time when Calcutta was a flourishing centre of commercial exchange and tried their luck. Many were successful in their attempts to establish commercial houses. There were and still are many who acted/act as financiers for new commercial ventures. 3) Some people came for a career in cultural pursuits – though a handful in number, they were, and still are, very prominent in society. They interacted mostly with the local people and the cultural exchange has since enriched both the giver and the taker. This typical English-educated elite/middle class image of a ‘South Indian’ is however very incomplete even within Calcutta. Many people from South India are visible in other economic layers as well – there are shop-keepers and small-scale traders who cater to the daily needs of the South Indian households settled here. There are many lower middle class South Indians who struggle for their everyday existence with the pressures of price-hike and other tensions characteristic of a metropolis. This comparatively less affluent class has their own conglomerates in certain pockets of the newly extended parts of greater Calcutta. There are also a number of poor people who work at road-side food shops as cooks, preparing the popular South Indian snacks. Class–culture homogeneity among the different people of different provinces from the South residing in the city is therefore a myth. It will not be possible here to address the history of migration, stay and experience through the generations in this city, of these people from the many communities. And before addressing some specific aspects of the communities concerned, a wide overview needs to be presented. I will make an attempt to highlight some aspects of the socio-cultural adjustments and compromises made by the people of the ‘South Indian’ communities, and of their attachment to, or alienation from, this city in which they live. The research was conducted at three levels on the lifestyle, experience and attitude of the people. The first was the well-established associations formed by people of specific regions, or communities – a prominent feature of ethno-linguistic minorities. The nature and function of such associations was researched. These associations function as platforms of linguistic homogeneity and cultural exposure – usually unavailable in the general pattern of the cosmopolitan culture of Calcutta. The second was an attempt, through surveys, to understand the general attitude of the community, the intensity of the ethno-linguistic attachments and their social and cultural activities through the year. This revealed areas of homogeneity and exclusivity in certain social and cultural spheres, while in the areas of

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public interaction the more liberal norms of cosmopolitanism seem to prevail. Some of our survey work brought out interesting insights into conscious images held and nurtured by people of a certain milieu – an attempt to maintain the imaginary boundaries in order to retain a ‘pure’ cultural identity in this different world, away from the homeland province. There are variations in the levels of commitment towards the language– culture attachments. Behavioural patterns are uneven and complex, signifying both exclusive and inclusive tendencies within the community. The third area focuses on the ideas and experiences of some eminent personalities from these communities – people involved in the cultural processes of the city.

I The associations are the main platforms which allow the experience and enjoyment of a collective homogeneity in the social sphere for these English-educated, culture-conscious people. The first such association established in Calcutta was the South India Club in 1926, which observed its platinum jubilee in 2001. The famous scientist, noble laureate C V Raman was the first president of this club, 1926–1928. The next president was another famous personality, the great educationist Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1929). As is evident from its name, the club represented ‘South India’ as a whole. During his inaugural speech in the Platinum Jubilee celebration of the club, governor Sri V J Shah stressed this factor: The South India Club, it is heartening to know, does not restrict its membership to any particular state or linguistic group. Over the years, therefore, the club has developed a cosmopolitan character and is a favourite rendezvous for the nearby residents. The working of the club, I am told, is guided by egalitarian considerations and the facilities provided are within the reach of the middle income group.2

This embracing of all four major South Indian communities was conveyed through the vernacular newspapers from each of the four provinces that the club subscribes to. The subscription to the Kannad paper though has recently been stopped because there are no readers. At the functional level however, the club carries a very explicit Tamil dominance. All the presidents of the club have been Tamils, though an interesting exception was Mr Lakshmi Pati, by birth a Telugu, but a Tamilspeaking one. The majority of the executive committee members are also invariably Tamils and as the Secretary of the club admitted, this is a club that caters mainly to the interests of the Tamils in Calcutta. It has an

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overwhelming Tamil membership and the cultural programmes the club stages are only Tamil dramas and Tamil film shows. In the case of dance recitals, however, it encompasses a much broader spectrum – Bharatnatyam, Kathakali, Mohini Attam from the different South Indian provinces. Thus, though this club has the appearance of an over-all South Indian outlook in its trends and attributes, it is in reality largely a representation of Tamil exclusivity.3 The Tamils in Calcutta formed other organizations such as Rasika Ranjani Sabha, which gives emphasis on the cultural perspective, and the Tamil Manorama, a literary association that pursues Tamil literary and cultural interests. These associations have good relations with the South India Club and often arrange for programmes in collaboration with it. The South India Club, which acts as a parent institution, provides a back-up for commercial ventures undertaken by amateur Tamils, though not on any institutional basis. The informal backup that is provided by mutual understanding within the members is remarkable. Many of those interviewed made references to influential Tamil members who financially helped those unsuccessful in commerce. Similar associations meant exclusively for the other three language communities also exist. There is the Andhra Association for the Telugus, Karnataka Association for the Kannadigas and the Malayali Samajam and other associations by and for the people of Kerala. There are certain activities common to all these associations, which indicate their perspective and basic objectives: 1) These associations maintain a library containing many vernacular literature texts. 2) More than one vernacular newspaper and magazine in the mother tongue are subscribed to. 3) The Souvenir journal issues of the associations are mostly bi-lingual, in English and the vernaculars (an interesting exception was the Golden Jubilee number of the Andhra Association, which included a few Bengali and Hindi articles as well).4 4) Cultural activities are given a lot of importance, indicating the general commitment towards one’s own linguistic and cultural roots. 5) Most of the associations attempt to conduct some training classes in language and cultural pursuits such as music, dance and so on. 6) Organization of an annual social programme on a large scale. 7) Involvement in social welfare activities, such as blood donation camp, etc. Among the communities, the Kannadigas are the smallest and the name of their organization is Karnataka and Mysore Association. Founded in the 1930s, it was known as Mysore Association in its initial years before

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the Mysore state was named Karnataka, following which there was an urge to have an association named after Karnataka. Therefore, in 1986, a new association was registered. Soon afterwards, the old and new organizations were merged together.5 It is commonly known as Karnataka Association nowadays. The Souvenir issue contains a list of members with contact details6 (the 1989 Souvenir also included a full calendar of religious and other festivals of Karnataka7). In an article by P Thankappan Nair titled ‘Kannadigas in Calcutta’, the writer traces their history to the colonial regime: ‘The first Kannadigas or people of former Mysore and present Karnataka state to be settled in Calcutta were the sons of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore.’8 The 12 sons of Tipu along with their kinsmen were removed from Vellore to Kolkata in 1806 by the East India Company. Some of the successors of these unfortunate princes still live in this city, and its two architectural structures, Tipu Sultan’s Palace and Mosque are part of the city’s heritage. Important roads named after some of the princes, such as Prince Anwar Shah Road and Prince Ghulam Mhd Shah Road speak of this period of colonial expansionism. But there can be doubts regarding the offsprings of Tipu Sultan being labelled as ethnic Kannadigas. The next phase saw the coming of Kannadigas not as adversaries but as part of the newly created bureaucracy or intelligentsia under the second phase of the colonial Raj. Some prominent personalities of this time include B V Ramiah, a senior member of the Indian Civil Service, who was elected Mayor of the City in 1924, and whose presence provided a strong base to the Mysore Association in its initial days, and B S Kesavan, under whose tireless initiative the National Library of Calcutta attained its huge infrastructure. Mr Kesavan was one of the prime movers in transforming the former vice-regal lodge in Belvedere into the main building of the National Library. Kesavan played an instrumental role in updating the maintenance and expansion of the books and other documents in the library. In fact, Kesavan’s ‘India’s National Library’ is the first comprehensive history of this institution. P Thankappan Nair writes that: The number of Kannadigas who are living in Calcutta for 25 years and over will not be more than 200; the remaining number is made up of serviceholders in banks who seldom want to spend more than three years of banishment from their homeland. The floating members of the Kannad community do not owe much allegiance to Calcutta.9

A few visits to the twin association of the Kannadigas in Raja Basanta Roy Road reveal that falling membership has pushed it into insignificance,

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lack of man power making it difficult to continue the activities. The floating members lack the kind of initiative needed for the purpose. The people from Andhra have one centralized and compact organization named Andhra Association established in 1936. This Association runs a Telugu-medium school from as early as 1938. The Association complex holds the school, a library, a recreation club, and rooms for various cultural pursuits. It also has a trust whose regular function is linked with the school administration. Interestingly, the Andhra Association library contains only Telugu books, it organizes only Telugu film shows in Roxy Hall every Sunday morning, Telugu Film Festivals every year, and Kuchipudi Dance Festival annually. Collectively, the members of the Andhra Association observe Telugu New Year festival Ugadi with grandeur. A very strong sense of exclusivity and its observance can be sensed from the commitment and activities of this association. In contrast to the solidarity and uniformity of the Andhra people, the people from Kerala represent themselves in diverse organizations scattered throughout the city. Some of the associations are region specific, like the Tali Parambu Sangam, while some are caste specific, like the Calcutta Nair Service society, which is composed of the wealthy Nair caste. Others may be culture specific, such as Manas, which concentrates only on drama, and Kerala Kathakali Association, which facilitates the rich heritage of the Kathakali dance. There are organizations of religious specificity as well, like the Kerala Samajam of Christians, Kerala Muslim Association and so on. However, the Malayali Samajam, the first such association for the Malayalese in Calcutta, established in 1952, has a secular principle included in its constitution and members are from all three major religious communities. This is also the largest of all the Malayalese associations existing in Calcutta. This organization consciously keeps away from observing religious festivals and concentrates on cultural pursuits. Dance and music are taught here. Bengali students are allowed to learn, but are concentrated in the dance classes, while the music classes (which give training in two typical Kerala drums, Chhedda and Eddaka) are attended only by Malayali men. The secretary of the Malayali Samajam Mr P Venugopalan is very enthusiastic about facilitating Malayali language and culture in Bengal. He is involved in a project with the Jadavpur University, Department of Comparative Literature, to introduce Malayali language in the curriculum, and is also part of an endeavour of translating stories from one vernacular to the other. In fact, Kerala had a strong tradition of translating Bengali stories of famous authors like Tagore, Sarat Chandra, Bimal Mitra and so on. Bimal Mitra was once felicitated in

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Malayali Samajam for his lifetime works. The Malayali Samajam plans to establish a Malayali-medium school, though earlier attempts at running vernacular training classes proved unsuccessful. There have also been attempts to teach the language in Puragamana Kala Sahitya Sangha and Malayalam Study class, but the scattered and dispersed nature of the Malayalese associations adversely affects their infrastructural efficiency, including that of the Malayali Samajam. These empirical studies about the activities of different associations testify to their active role in creating a bond among their people and to their attempts to be in touch with their vernaculars and cultural practices. But some basic limitations affect almost all these associations. One is the very marginal representation of the young generation. In fact, the regular members often lament their children’s lack of commitment towards their cultural roots. Some blame the pressures of the school curriculum which leave little energy among the children to learn the vernacular or regional cultural attributes in private institutions. Though all the organizations have arrangements for in-house programmes like quiz, athletic meets, picnics and cultural competitions which are meant for the young people, these cannot create a sense of belonging in the youth. A statement found in a souvenir of South India Club expressed this common agony at the turn of the century.10 A pop-music programme was arranged under their banner in order to attract support from the younger generation, but that too turned out to be unsuccessful. The growing popularity of the TV channels was also felt to have worked adversely towards the cultural activities of the club. The unattractive get-up of these Associations is a shortcoming as well. Even the canteen of the South India Club which offers excellent food at amazingly moderate prices fails to attract people from within and outside the communities because of its dull surroundings, outdated furnishing and impersonal service. In fact, though conscious and appreciative of each other’s culture, very marginal cultural interactions take place between the Bengalis and South Indian communities through these associations. There is little publicity regarding their cultural functions in the media. Whether this is a conscious choice to underplay the cultural commitments or a deliberate refusal to exhibitionism is, however, a debatable issue. Moreover, a sizeable section of the communities in the recent decades choose to remain outside the circle of these associations. This may be because of the distance from the residence, or lack of interest, or simply because of a busy schedule or lifestyle. Also, though the pursuit of culture on a small scale is characteristic of all the associations, none of the professionals who have taken up cultural pursuits as a serious career have prospered or excelled under the banner of any association. Despite

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cordial relations between these cultural celebrities and the leading members of these associations, there has been no conscious attempt to use their fame in favour of the associations. They are present simultaneously as casual recreation clubs and serious cultural centres. Temperamentally, therefore, meeting and talking to one’s people in the mother tongue, sharing a common memory of homeland, gathering news about the homeland province etc. remain important for a major section, while a handful of enthusiasts take up cultural endeavours. In the context of globalization and growing popularity of new cultural forms, the viability and even existence of local cultural groups of all kinds is being challenged. The associations of the South Indians are no exceptions. It remains to be seen what specific strategies they adopt, if any, to face the challenge of globalization in the days to come.

II The interviews and a written questionnaire brought out significant homogeneity in the behaviour of the people concerned. To begin with, the investigation into children’s education reflected the unhesitating choice of the large majority for English-medium schools. This was not only due to lack of options, but because English-medium schools provided better career opportunities. Most of the mainstream English-medium schools do not offer any of the four South Indian languages even as a third language option, thus the children who are educated there remain largely uneducated in their mother tongue. The National High School for Girls and Boys, though an English-medium school under the Madhyamik Board, provides this rare opportunity for the Tamil people to study Tamil as a first language. This is a very old institution, established in 1917, as an Anglo-Tamil School. At that time, there was an option for Tamil medium of instruction. Gradually the purpose and motto had to be readjusted. In the 1960s, it became an English-medium school with Tamil as a compulsory first language. This exclusive nature has been sacrificed lately and now Tamil comes as an optional language while Hindi is introduced as a more popular alternative, allowing a huge number of north-Indian non-Bengalis to take admission. This was done in order to sustain the roll strength and viability of the institution, but in the process the exclusivity had to be sacrificed. Further enquiry reveals that many Tamil students too opt for Hindi nowadays because of its practical viability. Some female students who still studied Tamil as first language were from families that regularly visited Tamil Nadu. The majority complained of the lack of Tamil story books in the school library and spoke about how they bought enough Tamil books

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for the whole year when they visited their home province. Their food habits included a wide range from South Indian to Chinese or North Indian dishes, some practised vegetarianism while others took non-vegetarian food as well. There did not seem to be much preference for Bengali food. Regarding music, the preferences ranged from Tamil music to western pop and Hindi songs. Though this is a very small and partial survey, yet it provides an interesting glimpse into the new generation and their attachment to their roots. Their feelings and reactions though unambiguous, are mixed in nature. The other institution which provides education in the vernacular is the Andhra Association School, situated within the campus of the Andhra Association. This is a high school which offers Telugu as the only first language, but is otherwise an English-medium school under Madhyamik board of West Bengal. Thus, by nature, it is a very exclusive institution, meant for Telugu-speaking children alone. The majority of teachers and non-teaching staff are from Andhra Pradesh. Not all of them though are residents of Calcutta, and interviews reveal that there are more Telugus in the Hooghly district than in Calcutta (there is one Telugu MLA from one of the constituencies in Hooghly). The management of this association seemed to be very satisfied with the running of the school, though they kept silent about the number of students and did not allow any student to be interviewed. They have plans to establish a college affiliated to the Annamalai University, so that higher studies in Telugu become possible. The Association seems solvent enough to take up such challenging projects. Yet, it is obvious that for various other practical reasons, not all Telugus opt for this school. For the Kannadigas and Malayalese, a vernacular institutional establishment seems impracticable. While for the former, the number of inhabitants is too small, for the latter it is financial constraint that is delaying the project to establish such a school. One significant feature of these people is their linguistic agility. Almost all of them are conversant in English and at least 80 per cent can comfortably understand and communicate in Bengali and Hindi. The basic difference in language is overcome with seemingly effortless ease by the majority of the people whose stay in the city is more than ten years. The anti-Hindi sentiments of the Tamil people, part of a deep-rooted disaffection born out of the Dravidian identity politics, also appears to have declined in this neutral land where Hindi is accepted as a matter of fact minus any sense of chauvinism. This movement arose just after independence with the announcement of Hindi as the national language. A protest against the imposition of an alien North-Indian language over the self-conscious

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Tamil territory, the movement gathered momentum under the leadership of Periyer during the 1950s and gradually died down in the next decades. But it left a general disaffection towards the use of Hindi language among the Tamil people for a long period of time. At the work place, use of Hindi seems unavoidable and we came across a Kannadiga lady conversing with a Malayali lady in Hindi which served as a common language. So we had to rethink the common perception of the South Indians’ aversion to Hindi during our survey. More than 200 random survey samples among the four communities show a striking uniformity in the use of languages in the work place – Hindi and English are the two languages which they all ticked, and often Bengali. But there was not a single respondent who ticked Bengali if they had not ticked Hindi. In spite of Bengali being the language of the province, Hindi was preferred because of its practical viability. The ability to read and write in these two languages are limited though. They are used more as necessary interactive languages and few are interested in ‘learning’ the languages as such. But in the course of our research, we met a young student whose father is a Malayali and mother a Bengali, – the girl admitted with a shy smile that she does not even understand her mother (father?) tongue. Weakening of the ethno-linguistic attachments take place in the case of the new generation born and brought up here and more so in the case of children born out of mixed marriages. But the use of the mother tongue seems quite important to most of the families and appears to be a marker of identity that these individuals wish to preserve. Other social or cultural practices through which the people from these four provinces try to maintain a distinct identity include a very disciplined practice of religion in the household. There is little apparent distinction among the Hindu religious practices of the people from the four provinces. Regular religious observance and rituals are almost mandatory for each individual among the communities. Unlike most urban Bengali-Hindu families where daily worship is not overtly elaborate and participative, the daily worship in South Indian families is an important part of the everyday routine for all members. Out of a random sample of 200, only two Kannadigas claimed to be non-believers. While individual worship seems to be a common factor for all, the frequency of observing fasts, visiting temples and joining religious festivals varied. But these are more or less part of their routine life. Visiting temples is quite a weekly affair. And special days like a birthday begins with a temple visit in most families. The dot of sacred sandalwood paste or sacred ash (vibhuti) on the forehead of many South Indian people is irrespective of gender, class, caste, community or language. They carry that impression of religiosity quite proudly along with formal western outfits. At public places, these are the

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small and subtle indicators that distinguish a ‘South Indian’ from the rest. Among the Tamil Brahmins who are still numerically quite large in Calcutta, there is a marked distinction in religious creed. The Iyers who are the followers of Shiva put three lines of vibhuti or sacred ash horizontally, while the Iyengars, the followers of Vishnu, paint the lines vertically. These markers thus convey the distinctions within one linguistic community as well. There are some Hindu temples in South Calcutta controlled and managed by South Indians. The idols of these small establishments are in the Tamil, Telugu or Malayalese tradition, the priests are from distinctive ethno-linguistic communities, the method of worship and even architecture pertain to South Indian tradition; such are the Sasta Samuha Temple, Guru Vayu Temple and so on. Such temples are visited on auspicious family occasions, such as birthdays. They act as pockets of collective religious practices. People from one province often visit a temple representing another province. For example, Malayalis have no reservation in visiting a Tamil temple or vice versa. And visits to Bengali temples are also part of the practice of many religious Hindus from the South. In fact, it emerged from the survey that there is hardly anyone who has stayed in Calcutta for a few years, yet never visited the Kalighat or the Dakshineswar Temple, or even the local Hindu temples. Yet, the existence of temples exclusively catering to South Indian religious practices signified a distinctive urge to create a cultural ambience, to feel at home even when worshipping the same God. In spite of interacting with and accepting the local people and the existing religio-cultural atmosphere, there still remains a tendency to carve out small enclaves of exclusive homogeneity, without any conspicuous projection of strong religious urge. There is an overwhelming participation from every community in the largest religious festival of the city, Durga Puja. And all the respondents claimed that they not only participate and enjoy this great festival, but many added that they could not think of missing it. This four-day long festival in the name of religion brings the city into such high spirits that people across cultures and religions participate and make it a grand success. This involvement in Durga Puja celebrations may be considered an important landmark in finding out how far an outsider has accepted the city of Calcutta. We made a comparative study regarding the participation in the four major religiocultural festivals of the city, the Durga Puja, Holi, Christmas and Eid. The reaction was almost uniform – the participation being highest in Durga Puja and lowest in Eid. But for the other two events, participation varied without showing any trend. The other indicative issue is the mindset about marriages. Attitude towards mixed marriage is diverse. Though mixed

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marriages are increasing in Calcutta, there is usually a complex story behind it. Our survey on this issue indicated a fifty-fifty divide across categories. But among the people of the four communities, our limited survey found the Tamils showed more disapproval towards the concept of mixed marriage, while those who notionally supported it preferred to keep it confined within the broader South Indian communities. The Malayalese, Telugu and Kannad showed similar tendencies as well. Does this imply a vague sense of broader homogeneity? Marriage with Bengalis came as second preference for those who accepted mixed marriages. For interreligious marriages, preference is least in case of Hindu–Muslim marriage while a Hindu–Christian marriage appeared as a third preference in many cases. The marriage venues are mostly in the home town, or village, surrounded by relatives and people of one’s own culture. Some marriages take place in this city also, where there are other practical considerations. But a lot of care is taken to make the rituals perfect, and the necessary items of rituals along with the bridal costumes and ornaments are brought from the traditional places of South Indian markets. Regarding food habits, the survey found a number of interesting insights. A big section of Tamil Brahmins or Brahmins of Telugu or Malayalese descent observes strictly vegetarian food habits. But among people of other castes, non-vegetarian food is acceptable. Especially the Malayalese, being mostly coastal people, are very fond of fish and rice, thus bringing them closer to Bengali food habits. Interestingly, many people from all the communities admitted that though they don’t cook non-vegetarian food at home, yet many, especially the younger ones indulge in egg and chicken outside the house. Preference for Chinese food is quite common among the new generation. Interaction and experimentation with Bengali food habits are restricted in South Indian households. However, it transpired from our conversation with some ladies of Malayali and Tamil origin, that one Bengali vegetarian delicacy which they have learnt and introduced in their cuisine is alurdam – a special savoury dish made out of potato. The use of coconut oil as the cooking medium is a speciality for these people, and very different from Bengali cooking. In fact, some aged Tamil women told us that the difference in food practices sometimes creates a practical difficulty in marriages with Bengalis. The last question in the survey was made about the preferred identity, and an overwhelming majority decided to stick to ‘Indian’ identity alone without entering into further complications. But those who agreed to arrange in hierarchy the regional, national, religious identities along with their belongingness to Calcutta, unhesitatingly put Calcutta at the bottom

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of the list, putting Indian identity at the top, regional identity second and religious identity at the third position. In a few cases, Calcuttan identity came at the third and religious identity came last.

III Prof. N Vishwanathan, quite a celebrity in Calcutta, has now become a part of the Bengali intelligentsia. His father came to Shibpur, Howrah for service during the colonial period. He married a Bengali and does not appear to carry any sign of being a Tamil, other than his name. This marriage to Paromita, daughter of a very famous Bengali intellectual Prof. Kalidas Nag, has undoubtedly helped him in his association with Bengal. The house where they live is inherited by Paromita from her father. Paromita Vishwanathan, as she writes her name, has a boutique at their place of residence and pursues a career in fashion and culture. Their son Ashok Vishwanathan has also married a prominent Bengali lady, Madhumanti, who is known for her stage and screen appearances as an anchor person. Ashok makes films about Bengali middle class life, its tensions, politics, crises and tragedies, his emphasis being the urban poor. The Tamil identity has got diffused, a fact that is candidly accepted by the senior Vishwanathan. But in spite of such inroads into Bengali entity, Prof. Vishwanathan is not cut off from the South Indian communities of the city. He is quite well-informed and well connected with many of the collective organizations of the Tamils in Calcutta. As Secretary of the South India Club, he is regarded as one of its prized assets. Vishwanathan informed us that he hails from a Tamil Brahmin family with the surname Iyer, though, like most Iyers, he does not use it with his name all the time. His first name Vishwanathan is used by his wife and son as their surname, writing the name followed by a surname as in Bengali caste-Hindu families. This use of the husband’s first name or the father’s name is not uncommon among the Tamils. Usually, married women use their husband’s name after their first name while the children use their father’s name in an abbreviated form before their own name. For example, Vishwanathan writes the initial of his father’s name, ‘N’ before his own name. In this format, his son could have written it as V Ashok. But he writes it more like a Bengali surname after his name in full form. As Vishwanathan jokes, his personal name, a gift from his father, is now a family entity, shared and claimed by all. Dr Lakshmi Subrahmaniyan, an eminent historian of the city, Tamil by origin, was born and brought up here and is currently associated with the Centre for Social Sciences, Calcutta. She is very close to Bengali language, lifestyle and culture and has a number of Bengali friends as well. But she

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admits that Bengali food is too spicy and she does not enjoy it. She does not participate in any of the religious, social or community gatherings of any Tamil society of Calcutta as such. But neither does she take part in any Bengali social or religious festivals. From her perspective as a historian, she feels that if seen carefully, all the migrations were encouraged by the spread of imperial institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She adds that even today, the class of Tamils to venture out to Calcutta are those from rich backgrounds. Those who wish to pursue a career in business are supported by the community collectively. Here, she stressed the role of the South India Club as a collective platform to provide support for such financial ventures. While analysing the Tamils in Calcutta, she takes a very distinctive position of being neither within nor without the broader community. She admits that Calcutta is a liberal city where anyone from any part of India can feel at home. Apparently she has neither much attachment towards her own community nor does she belong to Bengali society as such. She prefers to hold on to the Indian identity alone. Her attachment to her Tamil cultural roots is revealed in her research study which has since been published as a book, From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy – A Short History of Music in South India.11 Her interest in modern Tamil identity politics as a historical phenomenon is also proof of her deep interest in her Tamil roots. The Headmistress of National High School, Mrs Lalita Venkatesh, is an educationist. Her outlook as a third generation Tamil of Calcutta is very different from that of Dr Lakshmi Subrahmaniyan’s. Though attached to education, she has a completely different trajectory in her own public and professional life. She traces the evolution of the school from an exclusivist Tamil institute to a popular English-medium school where Hindi is taught and Tamil remains an optional first language. Her attachment to this institute provides her a window to observe the continuity and changes appearing in the growing generation. She admits without much regret that even Tamil students nowadays do not opt for Tamil as first language. They prefer to take Hindi as a more useful medium of communication. She also states that the third generation of immigrants mostly become indifferent to their ethnic roots and cultural practices. This is also due to the fast life led by the parents and absence of grandparents in most families. The children do not come in touch with traditional observances, customs and norms in daily life, a fact which creates a mental distance from the socio-cultural life back in the home province. But, she also admits that this is no typical experience with the South Indians as such, but a general phenomenon in many ethno-cultural communities. Though she admits the influence of westernization, she still believes in the necessity of knowing

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the roots of one’s own tradition and culture. She gave her own example in this context as a deeply religious person, attached to a number of religious organizations led by the Tamils of Calcutta. She is an active member of the Sasta Samuha organization. But she also participates in Bengali Durga Puja wholeheartedly and can never think of missing the ritual anjali either. Though she does not have any objection to the concept of mixed marriage, she raises a number of practical questions which she thinks should be resolved before entering into such marriages. She says that the difference between the Bengalis and Tamils do not appear in the culture or mindset, and even language is not a big hurdle. The problem of adjustment may lie more in the difference in food habits, Tamil Brahmins being strict vegetarians and Bengalis being obsessive fish-eaters. Besides the Durga Puja, the other platform which helps in the cultural interaction between the two communities significantly is the sphere of classical dance. The city has welcomed the richness of this centuries-old classical tradition, especially Bharatnatyam, which is overwhelmingly steeped in the ancient Tamil tradition. Interestingly, this is a sphere where the culturally aware Bengalis stand at the receiving end quite humbly and enrich and cultivate their scope both as dancers and audience. More Bengalis than South Indians in the city of Calcutta are at present involved in upholding and spreading the classical dance traditions brought from the South. The most popular and successful contribution of South India in Bengal’s culture has been in this field of dance. The personalities who dedicated their lives and careers to popularize Bharatnatyam, Kathakali, Mohiniattam and Kuchipudi in the city have made a colossal contribution to its cultural dimensions. Some have become living legends. People of Calcutta share a collective pride in them. The names of Guru Govindan Kutty and Guru Thankumani Kutty and their institute Kalamandalam rank very high in the world of dance. Mrs Kutty stated that though originally from Kerala, she became a ‘Calcuttan’ in 1958, and Kalamandalam, the famous dance institute was established in 1968. Now, Kalamandalam has seven branches within the city, with twenty-five teachers and about five hundred students, the majority of them being Bengalis. She also proudly claimed that many of her students were already famous dancers, namely Anita Mallik, Abhay Pal, Sanjukta Banerjee, Debjani Majumdar, Madhubani Chatterjee and others. There is however, little attempt on the part of the students to learn the language of the songs but this has been accepted by the teachers. Mrs Kutty mentioned that she has begun to experiment successfully with the Nritya Natyas of Rabindranath, such as Chandalika and Mayar Khela. She admitted that Tagore songs with their combination of melody and lyrics open up a very

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rich avenue to experiment with in Bharatnatyam and Kathakali. A few years back, during the Durga Puja, Suruchi Sangha, a club of Behala which is famous for its experimentation in the presentation of this festival, had used the theme ‘Kerala’ in their image and ambience. Guru Govindan Kutty and Guru Thankumani Kutty were invited to pose for the images of Durga Mahisasura.12 Since Mrs Kutty has consciously chosen the role of a teacher and has refrained from being a performer, this was a rare opportunity to see her in dance postures. Guru Govindan Kutty came to Calcutta in 1955 on an invitation from Malayali Samajam and had remained steadfast in his mission to spread Kathakali ‘to the culture hungry people of Calcutta’. 13 He had been a Professor in Kathakali in the Performing Arts section of Rabindra Bharati University and throughout life taught Kathakali to innumerable students in Kalamandalam free of cost. In a newspaper article entitled ‘The Link between Eastern India and Kerala’,14 he made very pointed insights on some striking resemblances between certain local traditions of Kerala and regional Bengal. He speaks about remarkable similarities not only in folk and religious traditions between the two far flung areas, but also some strange etymological resemblances that need further investigation. ‘The ground of my article is the similarity and find between the “Gambhira” and “Chau” dances of Bengal and the Kathakali dance of Kerala. It is very interesting to note that “Vamana” is worshipped on the full moon night of the month of Sravana in Murshidabad and similarly “Vamana” and “Mahabali” are part of the celebrations of “Onam” festival at Kerala during the same time. Another interesting thing to note is that in Kerala as well as in Bengal little boys are affectionately called “Kutty.”’15 Another young and promising couple, Mr and Mrs Venkit impart training in different South Indian dance forms in their own institute, Umakalayam. They too are Malayali by origin, but impart training in Bharatnatyam along with two other distinct Kerala styles, Kathakali and Mohiniattam. Guru Kalamandalam Venkit is attached to the Department of Kathakali in Rabindra Bharati University and is an excellent performer. Mr K Venkit came to Calcutta in 1977 in search of a career after finishing his training at the famous institute of Kerala Kalamandalam. He admits that he instantly fell in love with the culture-conscious Bengalis. From his perspective, this cultural efflorescence of Bengal in general is a contribution of Tagore whom he addresses as ‘Gurudev’ in Santiniketani style. He had his first stage performance in July 1977 at the Calcutta Kathakali Art Centre. There is a difference in the learner’s attitude towards dance in Kerala and Bengal. While in Bengal dance is taken up as a hobby, and seldom as a career option, in Kerala, Kalamandalam admits only those pupils who will

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dedicate their lives to the dance. The method of training there, is therefore, much more intense and rigorous. Though he is a Brahmin by caste and wears the sacred thread, Guru Venkit feels that he does not consider it a matter of pride, and has had Christian and Muslim friends coming and staying at his place during his hostel days in Kerala Kalamandalam. The stark reality of religious intolerance and untouchability disturbs him and he has composed a dance recital in Bharatnatyam after a poem by Nandanar on untouchability. He too has begun experimenting with Tagore songs in Bharatnatyam and Kathakali. His troop has performed the ‘Swadeshi’ songs of Tagore on an invitation from Kerala Kalamandalam. Guru Preetha Venkit, the wife of Guru K Venkit came to Calcutta 15 years ago. Born and brought up in Patna, she was closely associated with dance and music as her father was a teacher of Karnataki vocal music. There are other dancers from the South in different parts of Calcutta who promote such cultural interaction through their teaching and performance. An even greater number remain in the backdrop as singers and accompaniments to the dance recital. For the vocal accompaniment especially one must depend on someone proficient in Karnataka style of classical music, an area where the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Kutty, Sukumar, is proficient. The experiences I have presented give a kaleidoscopic impression of a community of people who are different, – who are conscious of this difference and practice the differences even as they remain a part of the city. There is a definite ‘we–they’ syndrome present in various degrees among the people we met and talked to, but the feeling of alienation carries no trace of hostility. A concern for the young generation is common and some decide to send their children to their home-province for a better chance of higher education. Though this may be construed as a sort of return, the practical exigencies suggest that it is a move forced by economic rather than cultural/social causes. In fact, this may be seen as part of a broader trend. In spite of the various differences of impressions and experiences gathered from the research, the warmth and spirit of hospitality of the city was acknowledged by all. It was also felt that Calcutta allows a certain space to different communities to enjoy their exclusivity peacefully.

NOTES 1

2

Namboodiripad, E M S, The National Question in Kerala, People’s Publishing House, Bombay, 1952, p. 1. South India Club, Platinum Jubilee (1926–2001), Speech of His Excellency, Sri Viren J Shah, The Governor of West Bengal, at the Inauguration of a Drama Festival organized by the South India Club, on the Occasion of its Platinum Jubilee Celebrations, Souvenir, 8 November 2001.

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3

4

5 6

7 8

9 10

11

12

13

14 15

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Cover page of the Platinum Jubilee Souvenir of South India Club portray dance recitals in Bharatnatyam and Kathakali. Andhra Association Golden Jubilee Number,1986. The Bengali articles were: a) Bhattacharya, Vishnupada, ‘Rabindranath o Andhra Pradesh’, pp. 115–27. b) Mitra, Purnashree, ‘Pratiksha’ (a drama made from a Telugu story by Reddy, Suravaram Pratapa), pp. 111–15. The Hindi articles were: a) Rai, Pandurang, ‘Kabi Samrat Viswanath Satyanarayan ki Vyaktitwa aur Krititwa’, pp. 129–36. b) Raji, K Sapne, (Poem), p. 136. Karnataka Association 94, Raja Basanta Roy Road, Calcutta 700 029. Souvenir Issue of the Karnataka Association, 1982, pp. 1–10; Souvenir of 1984, pp. i–xvi. Souvenir Issue of the Karnataka Association, 1989. Nair, P Thakappan, ‘Kannadigas in Calcutta’, Diamond Jubilee Celebration, Karnataka Association, 1992. Ibid. Venkataraman, S N, ‘Reminiscences about the South India Club’, South India Club, Platinum Jubilee Souvenir, Calcutta. Subramaniyan, Lakshmi, From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy: A Social History of Music in South India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2006. Durga is the ‘shakti’ form of the goddess in Hindu mythology who defeated the evil demon Mahisasura. This triumph of good over evil is celebrated in the autumn with the worship of Durga, the Durga Puja, which is extremely popular all over Bengal. Ananda Bazar Patrika, 15 September 2003. Kutty, Kalamandalam Govindan, An Admiration, Smaranika, Calcutta Malayalee Samajam, Golden Jubilee, 2000–2001, p. 47. Ananda Bazar Patrika, Rabibasariya, 14 August 2005. Kutty, Kalamandalam Govindan, An Admiration, Smaranika, Calcutta Malayalee Samajam, Golden Jubilee, 2000–2001, p. 105.

Ghurka Guaru and Family at the Alipore Airbase. Photograph Courtesy: Frank Bond, The Bond Photo Library, University of Chicago, The Digital South Asia Library, 1945.

Chapter 12 ‘NON-BENGALI’ ICONS OF MALEVOLENCE: MIDDLE CLASS REPRESENTATION OF AN ‘OTHER’ IN INTERWAR CALCUTTA

Sudeshna Banerjee This article meets the central theme of the present volume from a relatively unusual direction. Instead of focusing directly on the ‘minorities’ in Calcutta1 in terms of their own respective subjectivities, it explores how the notion of ‘minority’ is significantly shaped by the way in which dominant groups in the city perceive themselves as the ‘majority’. Arguably, the ‘majority’s’ self-projection is as crucial in the configuration of ‘minorities’ as the relatively objective parameters of demography and statistics. Again, if the minorities in Calcutta have historically and variously asserted their cultural differences and thus inscribed their signature on the configuration of minorities, there is a sense in which this configuration has been dialectically constituted by the ‘majority’s’ discourse of power. Finally, a study of the ‘majority’s’ discourse on the ‘minorities’ also brings out the role of cultural essentialism in translating the bare demographic–statistical fundamentals of a minority community’s existence into majority communities’ construction of the ‘other’. The boundaries of the self-perception of the ‘majority’ in Calcutta may well vary depending on what the authors of the concerned discourse of power invoke as the crucial determinant of ethnicity – religion or language or a combination of both. Though discourses claiming a Hindu ‘majority’ for the city is common, the city is often also imagined as the site of an essential Bengali-ness. This latter essentialism authored by the Bengali middle class in its bid to appear as the cultural arbiters of Bengal/West Bengal conveniently silences very real fractures and stratifications within the Bengali-speaking people in Calcutta, and projects Bengali-ness as a

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homogeneous cultural identity that somehow deserves to be pre-eminent in the city’s life. This homogenization is complemented in discourse by a culture-insensitive lumping together of all other regional–linguistic communities in the city into a blanket category – the ‘non-Bengali’. Yet, despite revealing the Bengali’s wish to represent itself as the core of the city’s pulse, the term ‘non-Bengali’ also conceals some of the finer – sometimes conflicting – strands within the Bengali middle class modes of imagining the other in the city, to which it stakes its ‘natural right’ to primacy. Firstly, the term might generate the impression that linguistic difference is the sole matrix of ‘otherization’ here. But a close look at the elaborate representation of print culture in the Bengali world clearly indicates that the ultimate authorship of this discursive configuration originates in the world of the Hindu middle class and is thus also laced by considerations of class and religious identity, albeit implicitly. Thus the discursive configuration ‘non-Bengali’ represents the hegemonic intention of the Bengali Hindu middle class2 to speak on behalf of the Bengalispeaking multitude, within which this class really constitutes a numerical minority. Secondly, the indifference of a blanket ascription of ‘non-Bengali’ identity to all linguistic ‘minorities’ is not the only way in which this group has staked their claim to centrality in the city’s life. It is apparently paradoxical that a class, whose supreme indifference comes across in its essentialist and homogenizing construction of the ‘non-Bengali’, indeed does manage to distinguish between different linguistic–regional groups when it comes to ridiculing the latter. Thus, the Hindi-speaking up-country person, particularly the Bihari is the categorical target of the disdainful nickname Khotta, while the Oriya is pointedly ridiculed as Ude and the nickname Medo is reserved for the Marwari. It is, indeed, this paradox that prompts this article to take a historical route to understanding the specific self-perception as the ‘majority’ in Calcutta. Does the indifference and negativity of the construction of the ‘non-Bengali’ originate in the early nationalist confidence of the Bengali middle class about its professed role as the natural leaders of the nation, and the bitterness of the increasing diatribe against Ude, Medo, Khotta and so on developed later resulting from an emerging feeling of failed hegemony within the same class? If so, then one has to identify and analyse the historical juncture when the class’s expectation to hegemonize the linguistic–regional ‘others’ came to be replaced by an anxious premonition that the bid was failing. The present exploration locates that conjuncture in the period between the late 1910s and the 1940s. Though quite removed from the present context, the period is crucial. The Bengali middle class's voice in Calcutta today frequently rues that they are being edged out of

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the city ‘proper’ by the ‘non-Bengalis’. This voice unmistakably reaffirms the class’s original claim to centrality in the city’s life, if only by ruing the recent marginalization. This article discerns the first significant strains of this discourse in the eventful decades of the 1920s to the 40s. However, there is no attempt to argue that the current Bengali attitude to the nonBengalis in the city is an unmediated straightforward extension of the interwar situation.3 Rather, by relating the specific representations studied in this chapter to a definite historical conjuncture in the city’s life, this article emphasizes that the present-day Bengali middle class discourse on ‘non-Bengalis’ can be derived from its interwar counterpart only in terms of a dialectic of continuity and change. The attention of our probe is drawn towards the interwar period precisely by a peculiar development in the Bengali middle class world of representation at that juncture – an unmistakable eruption of negative stereotypes of specific occupational groups affiliated to regional–linguistic configurations other than Bengali. These stereotypes of the ‘other’ emerged on the margins of what the class clearly sought to secure as an ‘inner domain’ of its social and cultural existence. The urge to ideologically delineate such an ‘inner domain’, of course, ultimately derived from the class’s anxiety to secure a sphere of self-rule vis-à-vis an ‘outer domain’ marked by the colonial presence, where the class had admittedly been subjugated.4 However, this ‘inner domain’ also ideologically served to project the Bengali Hindu middle class as superior to those whom the class wished to hegemonize in its self-ascribed role as the natural leaders of the nation.5 The relevant stereotypes reveal how the Bengali middle class activated the externalizing parameters of the imagined ‘inner domain’ also in relation to the ‘non-Bengalis’. Having said that, however, it is equally important to identify the time from which the Bengali middle class's ‘inner domain’ came to be framed also in terms of a particularly acute sensitivity to the ‘non-Bengali’ otherness. Indeed, it should not be missed that these stereotypes were not produced in the late nineteenth century, when the class was confidently formulating its self-perception as the natural leaders of the nation, with an attendant air of superiority. Rather, it appears that the class developed a peculiar hyper-sensitivity to these ‘others’ under the impact of rapid changes in the class’s lived experience from the time of the First World War – changes that generated a sense of vulnerability that translated into a paranoid imagining of numerous ‘outsiders’, some of whom, as we shall see, were indeed demonized. Importantly, this was also the time when the ideological environment in Bengal came to be tinged with the Hindu nationalist discourse that represented the Bengali-Hindus as a ‘dying race’. Clearly, the Bengali middle class in the interwar period

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was beginning to forebode the failure of its bid to natural leadership of a ‘nation’ that was now being imagined by various regional–linguistic ‘others’ in a plurality of ways. The concerned stereotypes were not simple, straightforward derivatives of the sense of superiority associated with the class’s claim to being the natural leaders of the nation. One has to admit that the entire spectrum of ‘non-Bengali’ presence in early twentieth century Calcutta was not indiscriminately represented as malevolent. Certain ‘non-Bengali’ communities with a significant presence in Calcutta by the 1920s – e.g., the Sikhs – were generally not targeted for any sustained negative stereotyping in the various forms of middle class articulation. Again, even while contempt for particular regional–linguistic communities was evident in such emerging derogations as Ude, Medo and Khotta, every member of each of these communities, however, was not represented as malevolent. The class ascribed outright malevolence only to certain specific occupational groups from within these communities. The harmful ‘other’ in this regard took the form of the Hindustani goala (the up-country milkman), the ‘Ude’ thakur (the Oriya cook) and the ‘Medo’ byabasayi (Marwari businessman). This article argues that such selective demonization of the ‘non-Bengali’ cannot be fully explained unless we adequately factor in the specific history of Calcutta’s urbanization during the interwar period and in interaction with new material pressures on the Bengali middle class and the transforming significance of the family–household in the Bengali middle class worldview.

The Hindustani Goala and the ‘Ude’ Thakur The icon of the Hindustani goala, allegedly capable of killing Bengali infants with cholera-causing diluted milk is a particularly prominent stereotype that came to permeate the world of Bengali print in the interwar period. An article on the ‘problem’ of milk supply, authored by a Bengali and published in 1924 in the Calcutta Municipal Gazette of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation,6 had two photographs highlighting the ‘contrast’ between ‘hygienic’ milk supply and its ‘unhygienic’ counterpart.7 The first photograph showed a Bengali-owned milk outlet in the Hogg Market, with a subtextual emphasis on a supposed correlation between an upperclass, ‘westernized’ market ambience and hygiene. The other photograph showed two up-country goalas in a suburban train heading towards Calcutta with cans of milk to be sold in the city proper. The sleeping goalas, with recognizably up-country countenances, were obviously caught unawares by the photographer, who conveniently shot his subjects complete with

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unkempt gamchhas (piece of coarse cloth serving as a towel) round their necks and large uncovered milk cans exposed to dirt and germs beside them. In the accompanying printed text the author brought out what was implicit in the visual text – the correlation between the up-country goalas and the supposed degeneration of the bulk of milk supply in Calcutta to the lowest levels of hygiene. The author invoked the unhygienic by referring to the goala’s ‘dirty loin-cloth’ and ‘dirty gamchha’. He then went on to ethnicize his goala archetype by portraying him as ‘spitting all around’ – an unmistakable hint at the up-country origin of this goala. The contemporary Bengali middle class looked down upon up-country men as incorrigible quid addicts – khoini-kheko, who compulsively spat all over the place. However, the outright demonization of this icon was induced by the high-strung sensitivity that the Bengali middle class developed to ‘rising child mortality’ in Calcutta during the late 1910s and particularly 1920s. Popular periodicals were flooded with articles and letters to the editor that perceived child mortality as depleting the ‘nation’, the nation being variously perceived as simply anti-colonial or both anti-colonial and Hindu. Many of these articles ascribed the ‘alarming’ rise in child mortality to the quality of milk available in the city. In 1928 an article on ‘rising child mortality’ in the popular Bengali periodical Bharatbarsha wrote, ‘The milk that the goala supplies nowadays, diluted with water, is causing cholera’.8 A letter to the editor of Calcutta Municipal Gazette carried the same complaint in 1924.9 This portrayal of the Hindustani goala as a lethal agent was absent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the late nineteenth century Bengali print, the goala had very often been Bengali, and though he too was represented as diluting milk, he was not portrayed as an agent of any fatal disease.10 Our concern, therefore, is to try and locate the reasons behind this shift. This demonization, we suggest, ties up with the massive immigration of up-country goalas between 1911 and 1921 into Calcutta,11 at a time when Bengali middle class immigration from the districts was also increasing, creating a sudden heightened demand for milk and a dependence on commercial rather than domestic sources for its supply.12 This dependence was more often than not on the burgeoning community of up-country goalas than their Bengali counterparts, whose relative numerical strength in the city must have been dwindling in the face of massive goala immigration from Bihar. It is thus pertinent to pursue the transforming pattern of milk supply in Calcutta. In 1880 Shoshee Chunder Dutt had observed that even a lower middle class household in the city had at least one cow. 13 Again, Khitindranath Thakur wrote that ‘in the early years of the twentieth century

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almost every middle class household’ had its own cow-shed, unlike in the late 1920s when he was writing his book.14 If these are qualitative indications of change, a more quantitative statement was made in 1918 by Chunilal Bose, the Chief Chemical Analyst of the Government of Bengal. Chunilal noted that by 1918 only a third of the whole milk supply was ‘based in private residences’.15 It may be argued that the massive immigration of up-country goalas between 1911 and 192116 was largely a response to a pull factor constituted by the rising ratio of households without cows to the total supply of milk in Calcutta. And the rising ratio seems to have been largely constituted by a surge of family-based Bengali middle class immigration from the districts into Calcutta during the First World War, encouraged by enhanced railway networks and attracted by wartime job opportunities. With the khatal (market-oriented large cowsheds) steadily sidelining the goal (household-based cow pens geared to household consumption), the Bengali middle class household now came to perceive itself at the receiving end of the commercialization of milk supply in the city. The demonization of the Hindustani goala was probably, at least in part, a convoluted expression of the Bengali middle class exasperation at its own unavoidable vulnerability to market forces. The icon of the sexually and morally perverse Oriya thakur, emerging in the interwar period, was located within a wider language of class, deployed against the part-time servant as such. The part-time servant was excluded from the world of adoptive affect of the middle class because s/he was considered as tainted by the spirit of the market and having no assured loyalty for the employing household. This is evident from the use of derisive expressions like bhadate or bajare (mercenary, market-polluted) in relation to part-time cooks and servants from the end of the 1910s.17 However, the charge of dishonesty against the non-Bengali part-time servant was particularly virulent because in the middle class perception, the former stood at the intersection of two axes external to Bengali domesticity – the market and linguistic otherness. It is probably not surprising that in the wake of the huge increase in Oriya immigration into Calcutta during the decade of 1911–1921,18 the part-time Oriya cook particularly became a suspect and was harshly condemned or caricatured.19 For example, a book on popular psychoanalysis professedly based on the case-studies of a psychoanalyst called Aradhana Debi, constructed male servants in general as agents of sexual ‘pollution’ in young, middle class girls. And when it came to citing instances from the case-files, Oriya cooks or servants were overwhelmingly cited as offenders.20 The icons of the unhygienic Hindustani goala and the sexually immoral Oriya cook were, however, also tinged with the growing Bengali middle

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class exasperation with Biharis and Oriyas in general – the people from the neighbouring provinces who were supposedly choking Bengali middle class urban existence with congestion, shortages and disease. But this exasperation seems to have had a subtle subtext. The Bengali sense of superiority had been wounded and employment prospects affected by the emerging Bihari and Oriya middle class resistance to Bengali middle class employment in Bihar and Orissa from 1911 onwards.21 True, the Biharis and Oriyas who worked in interwar Calcutta were mostly uneducated, lower-class people who in no way competed with the Bengali middle class for educated employment, the latter’s mainstay. Still, the bitterness of the increasing rebuff in Bihar and Orissa, hitherto assured bases of Bengalieducated employment, rubbed off on the demonized images of the Bihari goala and the Oriya cook. Finally, the derogation certainly had the subtext of a moral and cultural inferiorization of the subaltern. Filth as an attribute of the stereotypical up-country goala and sexual immorality as an attribute of the ude thakur were posited as markers of the fundamental difference between these toiling people and the educated Bengali middle class. The voice of moral superiority authoring these icons derived from the Bengali middle class’s self-image as clinically distanced from menial labour and too educated to stoop to immorality.

‘Agent of Starvation’: The Marwari Businessman The Bengali middle class construction of the Marwari businessman, too, is couched in a language of class, but one that is fundamentally different from the middle class Bengali characterization of the subaltern goala and the cook. The Marwari businessman is usually represented as a class exploiting the Bengali middle class. Significantly, before the First World War, the construction of the Marwari as an exploiter of the Bengali middle class household had not emerged. Bengali pro-boycott activists of the antipartition agitation of 1905 did condemn the Marwari businessmen when the latter, out of business interests, abandoned the boycott of British goods after an initial participation. Nevertheless, the Swadeshi agitators had not characterized Marwari businessmen as inimical to Bengali middle class subsistence. On the other hand, as the boycott movement subsided, generating in its trail an enthusiasm for Swadeshi enterprise, a section of the pro-Swadeshi Bengalis, at least, came to laud the Marwari’s eagerness for self-employment and even ‘honesty in business’.22 But from after the First War, this discourse valorizing the Marwari spirit of enterprise came to be fractured by a prominent voice characterizing Marwaris as exploiters. 23 The fracture was often found in the same individual’s conciousness. ‘Parashuram’ (Rajshekhar Basu, the noted scientist, essayist

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and humorist) wrote in 1925 that the middle class Bengalis deserved to be beaten by the non-Bengalis in business.24 But he simultaneously blamed the latter, particularly the Marwaris, of ‘depriving the Bengalis of their mouthful’,25 and directly exploiting the Bengali household.26 Significantly, in 1922, ‘Parashuram’ had already created the famous fictional character of Ganderiram, a Marwari who marketed a cooking medium of dubious safety.27 That Ganderiram was the fictional embodiment of an emerging Bengali-authored stereotype is clear from a contemporary article by another author, which said, ‘If they so wish, the Marwari wholesalers in food can starve the city to death’.28 This eruption of a pervasive vituperation ties up with a significant development – the ‘complete control of Marwaris’ over the distributive trade in food since the First World War.29 Moreover, heavy Marwari investment in land and built property in the city from the last years of the First World War, made the Marwari appear all the more a direct exploiter of the Bengali lower middle class, at a time when the Bengali neighbourhoods in Calcutta registered a ‘remarkable’ rise in land values and rents in 1918–1819.30 In the context of an ‘acute housing problem’, Bengali middle class resentment articulated itself against the Marwari ‘manoeuvres’ that ‘shattered the hopes of Bengali lower middle class families of getting affordable rented accommodation’ in the apartment complexes lining the newly-constructed Central Avenue’.31

A ‘Dying’ Lot in the City of Survival Yet, to say that the demonizing thrust of the stereotypes can be explained merely in terms of the Bengali middle class’s sense of cultural and moral superiority is to turn the authorship of the cited stereotypes into as much of a caricature as the stereotypes themselves. The interwar years that saw the emergence of these stereotypes was a time when the Bengali middle class’s confident claim to natural leadership of the nation, gained in the late nineteenth century, was starting to get destabilized within the ranks of the class itself. With inflation, scarcity, the Great Depression, educated unemployment, and finally the whirlwind of the Second World War gripping the city’s life in quick succession between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, the lower middle class developed a self-perception of being besieged by numerous unprecedented pressures and gasped for survival. This perception translated into a paranoid search for reassuring boundaries to protect the possibilities of the class’s survival from all destabilizing agents. In this frantic quest for bulwarks, the Bengali middle class was bound to perceive dangerous agencies – ‘outsiders’ – preying upon the class’s existence. With the turn towards such a nervy

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frame of mind, it was not unlikely for the class to perceive an ‘otherness’ at any hint of regional–linguistic difference. But as we have already pointed out, the Bengali middle class anxieties identified specific occupational groups rather than whole linguistic–regional communities as ‘dangerous’. Interestingly, those non-Bengalis were stereotyped ‘hostile’ on whom the class had become unavoidably dependent in terms of everyday essential supplies. Thus, we may suggest that the stereotyping really symbolized the class’s exasperation with its own inability to move out of this dependence in its frantic quest for survival in Calcutta’s specific urban milieu. Thus it is essential to understand the production of the stereotypical Hindustani goala, the ‘Ude’ thakur and the ‘Medo’ businessman within the context of the Bengali middle class’s perceived ‘problem’ of survival during the interwar period. It is also important to understand that this anxious stake for survival among the Bengali middle class – particularly the lower middle class – came to peculiarly focus on Calcutta from the period of the First World War. The sudden increase in the immigration of Bengali middle class families from the districts into Calcutta from the time of the First World War and their experience in the city initiated the anxious equation of Calcutta with survival.32 The censuses do not provide separate statistical information about the immigration of the gentry from the districts into Calcutta.33 However, various other kinds of evidence indicate that the period from 1915 saw a sudden intensification of immigration of middle class families into the city. The ‘artificial development’ of industries during the First World War created a large additional number of clerical jobs in and around Calcutta;34 and this was a time when wartime extension of the railway network made migration with families easier. This new and powerful pull-factor coincided with potential push-factors, which in their turn, had either recently emerged or accentuated. For example, malaria, a cause of emigration from the Bengal countryside since the late nineteenth century, intensified during the 1910s and 20s,35 at a time when Calcutta came to be perceived as a sanatorium by comparison.36 It is important that while the death rate in Bengal as a whole steadily increased between 1910 and 1915, in Calcutta it rose much less.37 Again, in certain parts of East Bengal, considerable stretches of middle class habitation (particularly in Bikrampur and Noakhali) were lost to the rivers Padma and Meghna in the middle of the 1910s,38 even while wartime employment in Calcutta beckoned. Our hypothesis about the suddenly intensified middle class immigration seems to be further corroborated by the ‘abnormal rise’ in the rent of middle class tenements in Calcutta in the immediate aftermath of the First World War.39

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The circumstances of the immigration from the First World War onwards shaped the immigrants’ attitude towards the city. It is very important that for this new batch of immigrants, Calcutta was a desperately sought escape from death and devastation. It is unmistakable from the sheer volume of contemporary essays that the analogy widely used in connection with the countryside, from the 1910s onwards, was that of the shmashan (cremation ground, site of devastation).40 The sensibility of the immigrants in Calcutta, therefore, was one of an unwillingness to die in a city where they had come to ‘live’. There was a frenzied quest for life and survival. Basantakumar Chattopadhyay, a contemporary author, disapproved of this migration of families from the districts in the following words: ‘We have been so mesmerised by filtered water and electric fans that we are ready to live in dark, ill-ventilated rooms, give our children water that goes by the name of milk yet we would not leave Calcutta. Many of us would reply that the village is the breeding ground of malaria’.41 But paradoxically, his close observation of the migrants’ attitudes reveals why they would stake their quest for survival on Calcutta. His article gives an insight into the immigrant’s reactions. Leaving behind ‘death’, water-borne disease and malaria, to the ‘life’ promised by electric fans and filtered water, the immigrant families, once in the city, became party to the apprehensions of disease and adversity peculiar to Calcutta. Yet, they would rather stay on in the city, with its medical facilities, than go back to the world which they pervasively imagined as the unmitigated site of death. This desperate Bengali middle class investment on survival though familial migration to Calcutta became even more acute with the Depression, when the position of numerous intermediary tenure-holders in the rural economy dwindled drastically.42 It is significant that in the perceptible wake of the rural credit crunch in 1929, Calcutta (and not the countryside) became the world where ‘both the poet and the hero of the novel (in Bengali literature) situated his quest for true identity’.43 With this frame of mind riveted on an imagined prospect of survival and ‘life’ in a city which they coveted as their jealous preserve, the Calcutta that the immigrant Bengali middle class families discovered, was ‘swamped’ by the manifold increase in the influx of people from other provinces since the First World War. Suddenly, therefore, the middle class household imagined itself as situated in a city that had passed ‘into the possession of non-Bengalis’.44 ‘At present, Bengalis have become so cornered that it seems as if Golden Bengal does not belong to Bengalis any more [...] Had the post-war (First World War) tide not been impeded somewhat by the present depression, the whole of Calcutta would have passed under the control of non-Bengalis’.45

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However, the emerging Bengali middle class distrust for various categories of the ‘non-Bengali’ has to be read as much more nuanced than this elementary sense of exasperation. We need to realize that a class so desperately banking on Calcutta for ‘survival’ and ‘life’ could not, however, avoid perceiving ‘problems’ peculiar to the city itself, especially at that juncture when the class perceived numerous ‘problems’ besieging its existence.46 To be more exact, if Calcutta was coveted as a site of survival, it could, paradoxically, also conjure up images of death, decadence and suffocation, especially to a vulnerable lower middle class. It was under the shadow of these images that the Bengali middle class selectively perceived certain ‘non-Bengali’ occupational groups as ‘hostile’ – indeed, as agents of death and degeneration. The 1920s marked a sudden eruption of themes in Bengali print which were quite obviously the consequence of this feeling – fear of higher incidence of infectious disease,47 of importation of diseases from outside the city,48 and of a further decrease in per capita living space.49 These fears converged to find expression in a heightened concern about health, sanitation and mortality figures from the 1920s.50 Of course, certain other developments coincided to reinforce the trend. Chittaranjan Das’s ambitious mayoral effort to improve health in Calcutta, the voice of nationalist doctors,51 and the initial enthusiasm of the voluntary Ward Health Associations52 sensitized middle class householders to death and disease in their respective municipal wards as well as in the city in general. But this escalation of anxiety about health was probably also reinforced by the emerging discourse of the ‘dying race’. First coined by Upendranath Mukhopadhyay,53 the discourse represented Bengali-Muslims as steadily growing in numbers, ‘strength’, ‘wealth’ and ‘solidarity’, as against the Bengali Hindu ‘race’, which was supposedly heading towards demographic extinction.54 The ‘dying race’ thesis proved to be particularly emotive since the publication of the 1911 census. As the Hindu middle class increasingly imagined its bid to hegemony in Bengal threatened by Muslims, the world of print was flooded with essays which started with the explicit assumption that the Bengali-Hindus were a ‘dying race’.55 The rapid communalization of the Bengali middle class from the mid-1920s made this image of ‘dying’ an ideological trope of ‘immense potency’ that explicitly and implicitly underlay the vast majority of moral discussions on the Hindu way of life.56 As the class perceived itself, from the time of the First World War, as losing out to multiple pressures, a linguistic–provincial dimension also came to conflate with the communal dimension of ‘dying’. As the professional lead of the educated Bengali began to wane in the

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neighbouring provinces,57 and Calcutta increasingly attracted immigrants from other states, the Bengali middle class imagined itself as dying. Tamil clerks, for example, were perceived as ‘robbing’ Bengali families of subsistence, now that they were competing with Bengali youths for clerical employment in the city itself.58 The Marwari businessmen, in their turn, were seen as smothering the Bengali youth’s possibilities of sustaining the family through self-employment. In the face of a perceived problem of educated unemployment, the Bengali middle class was grudgingly abandoning its aversion to business and prescribing self-employment for its younger generation since the end of the 1920s. Again, largely as a result of the persuasion of economic nationalism, several Bengali-owned and managed firms emerged during the first two decades of the twentieth century.59 Yet by the 1930s, when the Great Depression generated massive unemployment making self-employment all the more essential for the occupational ‘survival’ of the Bengalis, these Bengali firms were found on the verge of collapse except in cases where they were taken over and rejuvenated by Marwaris.60 The Marwaris, on the other hand, had emerged, since the end of the First World War, as the leading community of Indian entrepreneurs in Eastern India, having managed to not only monopolize the distributive trade in food but also buy up shares of many European companies to a point where they were ‘poised to take over such firms’. 61 By the 1920s, Marwaris were very important players in the Calcutta Stock Exchange and accounted for the majority in every successive managing committee. Consequently, the Bengali middle class voice in favour of selfemployment now complained that the Marwaris were resorting to illegal trade practices and unfair competition, thereby blocking the Bengali youth’s way to business enterprise and depriving Bengali middle class existence of the possibility of economic survival. Again, the existing Bengali firms desisted from issuing fresh equity shares even if such a move was essential for their sustenance, because they were more anxious to exclude Marwaris at all cost. They were so wary of the Marwari ability to penetrate and swamp boardrooms that they rather risked a slower pace of growth. And as these Bengali firms lost vitality on their way to petering out of the city’s life, Prafulla Chandra Ray, the noted Bengali scientist and founder of Bengal Chemical, resented the ‘economic conquest’ of Bengal by ‘non-Bengalis’, mainly the Marwaris.62 The Bengali middle class’s self-perception as ‘dying’ was, however, most anxiously articulated in the areas of nourishment and child mortality. The Hindustani goala and ude thakur, or for that matter the Marwari trader in food items were seen as impinging on these areas. Indeed, in the world of Bengali print in the 1920s, the question of child mortality turned from an

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anxious concern into a neurosis. Writing in 1920, Bamandas Mukhopadhyay, one of the leading Bengali obstetricians of his time, situated his concern about child mortality within the construction of the ‘impending death’ of the Bengali-Hindus as a group.63 No wonder, therefore, that the paranoid search for guarantee against child mortality held the up-country goala hostage for any impurity – real or imagined – in the Bengali child’s milk-intensive diet, especially at a time when the urban middle class could no longer fall back upon an assured domestic supply of milk. The imagined malevolence of the ude thakur at least partly derived from his involvement in the preparation of food in numerous Bengali middle class households and working men’s messes in the city. Again, it is not surprising that with Marwari traders coming to control the distributive trade in food since the time of the First World War and the burgeoning discourse of the Marwari traders’ scant respect for moral trade practices, the Bengali middle class typically perceived the Marwari hand in the distribution of adulterated food among the ‘dying race,’ seeing a Ganderiram Batpariya in every Marwari dealer of food items.

The Dwindled ‘Inner Domain’ and the New ‘Outer Domain’ Perhaps, a question remains to be asked, nonetheless. Why was it that the Bengali middle class in the period following the First World War invoked its domesticity as the register of the ‘malevolence’ of the Hindustani goala, the Ude thakur and so on? It is unmistakable that the stereotypes under consideration occurred most profusely and routinely in those texts of the 1920s to the 1940s that were deeply – indeed, anxiously – concerned with disciplining middle class domesticity.64 Significantly, the Sikhs whose typical occupations in the city did not interfere with the domestic core – economic subsistence, health, nutrition or familial discipline of Bengali middle class existence65 – were not dragged down from the valorized pedestal to which late nineteenth century Bengali literature had elevated them; and this despite the Sikhs’ severally reinforced presence in the city from the period of the First World War.66 It is important to note that domesticity had been as major an ideological concern with the class in the late nineteenth century as in the interwar period, and yet the nineteenth century discourse had not laboured under any perceived threat of ‘nonBengali’ malevolence. So, if in the interwar period, the middle class voice of order came to perceive domesticity as preyed upon from the ‘outside’ by the Hindustani goala, Ude thakur and ‘Medo’ byabsayi, the question is whether the nature of domesticity itself had transformed in the meantime in Bengali middle class consciousness. Ideologically, domesticity was

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the nucleus of the Bengali middle class’s claim to moral superiority and national leadership in the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century. But rapid changes in the material context and political environment from the time of the First World War induced the class to reconfigure its domesticity amidst a sense of vulnerability and waning hegemony. The emergence of the non-Bengali icons of malevolence ties up with this wider phenomenon. I have shown elsewhere that the ‘inner domain’ of the nation that the Bengali middle class had confidently expected to lead in the late nineteenth century, was in effect an abstraction and extension of Hindu, upper caste, middle class Bengali domestic mores, articulated in the idiom of spirituality. This ideology, extending domesticity and seamlessly blending it with the notion of samaj as a field of a moral consensus to create an imagined nation, had a peculiar abstractness about it that generated a sense of expansiveness and inclusiveness. And as the class was confident that the rest of the nation would follow its leadership, it did not explicitly externalize the lower orders or the linguistic–regional ‘others’ from this idealized sphere of the domesticity–nation continuum. Rather, the inclusiveness of the domesticity–nation rhetoric helped the class to implicitly include these ‘others’ in the ‘inner domain’ of the nation but necessarily in the capacity of the led. This charitable inclusion – albeit condescending – of these ‘others’ in the ‘inner domain’ derived sustainability, it seems, from the Bengali middle class’s confidence that in real life the middle class household would have no truck with the ‘others’. This conviction was generated by a confidence that the Bengali upper caste, middle class household was cushioned by the depth of the specific kinship structure,67 and the ability of the rural– ancestral base to protect the family from the vagaries of the market. It was also sustained by the Bengali middle class’s political pre-eminence in nationalist politics and the pre-eminence of Calcutta as the hub of British rule. This inclusiveness of the imagined domesticity–nation continuum, however, became strained during the period from the 1920s to the 1940s. As the class steadily perceived itself as being edged out of the centre-stage of nationalist politics – what with the shift of the capital to Delhi and the growing importance of the nationalist leaders from northern and western India and the entry of the Indian masses into nationalist politics – a starker perception of the ‘non-Bengali’ as a significant ‘other’ was probably a foregone conclusion, especially with the massive immigration of Oriyas and Biharis during the First World War and immediately after. And, in that juncture, the ‘non-Bengalis’ who came to specialize in essential goods

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and services which the Bengali household had to perforce consume became, in the imagination of the middle class, exasperating symbols of its own capitulation to the forces of the market. The deployment of the concept of ‘business’ in relation to the up-country goala reflected the ‘helplessness’ of the household; Bengali middle class domesticity perceived itself at the receiving end of the commercialization of one vital service in a locale where urbanization had taken a sudden and alienating spurt from the period of the First World War. This sense of helplessness was reinforced when the prospect of depending on the rural base for survival disappeared for many middle class families with the rural credit crunch of 1929. However, a major development that imbricates the ascription of malevolence to the up-country goala and others, was the emerging perception among the middle class that there was now an ‘outer domain’ within the ‘inner domain’ of the nation. Of course, this perception was induced as much by numerous material pressures that besieged the class’s consciousness during this period,68 as by the feeling of being marginalized in the political arena.69 As the domestic horizon came to be dotted with numerous perceived ‘problems’ of subsistence and survival in the city, and as the class came to symbolically associate each ‘problem’ with a real human agency supposedly responsible for it, the Hindustani goala, the ure thakur and the Marwari businessman became major icons of this newly perceived ‘outer domain’. However, this perception of a new ‘outside’ was also informed by what the class perceived as the erosion of an upper caste, middle class moral consensus. Confidence in the power of persuasion of this idealized consensus had, in the nineteenth century, generated the Bengali middle class conviction that its supposed moral superiority was enough to hegemonize the regional–linguistic ‘other’ and all indigenous subaltern groups; and, as such, the class had not been anxious to expressly exteriorize the latter from the ‘inner domain’ of the nation. From the 1920s, however, the class nervously registered a significant moral flux within its own ranks,70 even while Calcutta’s middle class neighbourhoods, especially the upcoming ones, veered towards greater urban anonymity in terms of habitation pattern, architectural orientation and intra-neighbourhood ethnic linkages. It is not surprising, therefore, that the period from the 1920s to the 1940s saw the idealized domesticity–community–nation continuum displaced from its ideological pre-eminence. From being an abstract, expansive concept and paradigm for the nation, Bengali domesticity defensively narrowed down to the concrete confines of the individual household. The class had taken for granted that the Bengali middle class moral consensus at the level of the community, kin and neighbourhood

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would protect such essential benchmarks of the class’s ‘superiority’ as caste, purdah, educated employment and a self-ascribed non-criminal image. With this consensus wilting in the sphere outside the immediate household under the existential pressures since the end of the First World War, Bengali middle class patriarchy defensively burrowed into the individual familyhousehold for the protection of these benchmarks. With the class thus neurotically susceptible to imagining a new ‘outside’ from the very outer walls of the immediate household, the ude thakur and others were externalized from the ‘inner domain’ using not merely the concept of regional otherness but also – very crucially – the externalizing parameters of the everyday vulnerabilities of the ordinary middle class household. Thus, the Bengali middle class in the inter-war period represented the Oriya not only as a bad cook, a fake Brahman and/or a characteristically sly person at the level of the mess or public eateries, but additionally as a sexual ‘polluter’ of middle class girls at the level of the household. Again, while Bengali sensibilities in the interwar period blamed ‘non-Bengalis’ for generally choking the city with congestion,71 the Bengali household was particularly anxious about the moral integrity of the non-Bengali servant who the Bengali household, however, could not afford to dispense with. Let us conclude with a typical articulation of this anxiety in a book written in the interwar period in the form of a mother’s advice to her married daughter about domesticity. Amiyabala Guhajaya, the author, might sound ludicrous to posterity but she advised young married Bengali women in all solemnity about the non-Bengali, part-time cook: ‘Have you ever realised that the enemies (of your family) might bribe him (the nonBengali cook) to poison your husband and son!’72

NOTES 1

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Though the official name of the city is now Kolkata even in English usage, this article, written in English and focused on a historical period prior to this naming, shall use the name Calcutta. The present article shall henceforth use the term Bengali middle class as an abridged form to denote the Bengali Hindu middle class. This should not be interpreted as an attempt to silence the existence of Muslims and Christians among the Bengali middle class but as a means of saving space. Though strictly speaking, the interwar period extends between 1919 and 1939, this chapter, dealing with social developments, would often find such delineation too rigid to accommodate certain developments that understandably spilled over either backwards or forwards into the periods of the two wars. So in this article, the word interwar shall be a shorthand for the entire period from the period of the First World War to that of the Second. For a very persuasive theoretical discussion of the significance of this imagined ‘inner domain’ in the over-all imagining of the anti-colonial nation and its

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9 10

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essential difference with the imagining of the nation in the West, see Chatterjee, Partha, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1994, pp. 6–11. Also see Sarkar, Tanika, ‘Nationalist Iconography: Images of Women in Nineteenth Century Bengali Literature’, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Vol. 22, No. 47, 21 November 1987, pp. 2011–15; Banerjee, Sudeshna, ‘Embodying Space and Classifying Bodies: The Transforming “Inner domain” in Colonial Calcutta’ in Chakrabarti, Ranjan, ed., Space and Power in History: Images, Ideologies, Myths and Moralities, Penman, Calcutta, 2001. Banerjee, Sudeshna, ‘The Transformation of Domesticity as an Ideology: Calcutta, 1880-1947’, PhD dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1997, pp. 21, 26–30, 61–2. Amal Hom, a noted Bengali journalist and critic was the editor of Calcutta Municipal Gazette at that time. Ghosh, T K, ‘Sanitary Milk Supply’, Calcutta Municipal Gazette (CMG), 13 December 1924, p. 211. Ray, Rameshchandra, ‘Shishumangal Pradarshanite Ki Shikhlam’, Bharatbarsha, Ashadh, Bengali Era, (BE) 1335, p. 636. Bose, S S, Letter to the Editor, CMG, 3 January 1925, p. 309. E.g., Datta, Rameshchandra, Sangsar, 1886, in Ramesh Rachanabali: Samagra Upanyas, Calcutta, 1960, p. 365; Basu, Jogendrachandra, Bangali Charit, 1907 in Jogendrachandra Basu Rachanabali, Vol. 1, Calcutta, 1976, p. 142. Doctors had written even before 1910 on the harmful effects of diluting milk, but there was no demonization of the goala in lay opinion in print before the latter half of the 1910s. See the statistics quoted in Chattopadhyay, Haraprasad, Internal Migration in India: A Case Study of Bengal, K P Bagchi and Company Calcutta, 1987, pp. 424–5. For evidence of a perceived problem in milk supply among the Bengali middle class in Calcutta during the interwar period, see, for example, Bose, Letter to the Editor, p. 309; Ray, ‘Shishumangal Pradarshanite,’ p. 636. Dutt, Shoshee Chunder, India, Past and Present: With Minor Essays on Cognate Subjects, London, 1880, p. 226. Thakur, Khitindranath, Kalikatar Chalaphera: Sekale ar Ekale, Calcutta, BE 1337, p. 2. Bose, Chunilal, Milk Supply of Calcutta, Calcutta, 1918, p. 2. See the statistics quoted in Chattopadhyay, Haraprasad, op. cit., pp. 424–5. Guhajaya, Amiyabala, Ma o Meye: Kanyar Prati Matar Upadesh, Howrah, BE 1344, p. 152. Chattopadhyay, Haraprasad, op. cit., pp. 288, 290, 292–3, 296–7. E.g., Dasgupta, Umeshchandra, ‘Bange Daridrya Brddhi Haitechhe Kise’, Grhastha, Magh, BE 1323, p. 372; Das, Sundarimohan, Briddha Dhatrir Rojnamcha, Calcutta, BE 1330, p. 68, Basu, Nripendrakumar, Janmashasan (BE 1334), 4th edn, Calcutta, BE 1350, p. 50; idem and Debi, Aradhana, Nari Bipathe Jay Keno, Vol. 1, Calcutta, BE 1351, passim. Basu and Debi, Nari Bipathe, pp. 185–6, 189–202. E.g., ‘Samayiki’, ‘Nija Basabhume Parabasi Hale’, Bharatbarsha, Ashwin, BE 1340, pp. 645-7. The author resented the absence of concerted Bengali

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28 29

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32

33

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resistance to the influx of non-Bengalis into Calcutta at a time when people of the ‘adjacent’ provinces ‘disliked the Bengalis’ and ‘opposed the appointment of Bengalis’ there. For the historian’s comment on resistance to the appointment of Bengalis in the neighbouring provinces, see Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India: 1885-1947, Delhi, 1984, p. 164. E.g., ‘Alochana’, ‘Marwarir Nikat Bangalir Shikkha’, Grhastha, Chaitra, BE 1319, p. 210–11. E.g., ‘Molakat’, ‘Adhyapaker Mudikhana’, Arthik Unnati, Bhadra, BE 1333, pp. 432–3. ‘Parashuram’ (pseud.), ‘Banglar Bhadralok’, Bharatbarsha, Ashadh, BE 1332, pp. 1–5. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Parashuram’ (pseud.), ‘Siddheshwari Limited’ (1922), in Parashuram op. cit., pp. 3-17. ‘Parashuram’s’ keen social sensitivity, albeit from a highly educated Bengali middle class location, was reflected not merely in his essays but also in his satirical short stories. ‘Molakat’, op. cit., p. 433. E.g., Ibid., pp. 432–3. For a historical insight into this development see, Ray, Rajat, Urban Roots of Indian Nationalism: Pressure Groups and Conflict of Interest in Calcutta City Politics, 1875-1939, Vikash Publishing, New Delhi 1979, p. 134. Report of the Committee Appointed to Enquire into Land Values and Rents in Calcutta, (RCRC) - 1920, Calcutta, 1920, p. 2. E.g., (Anon.), ‘Kalikata Sahar o Badibhada’, Arthik Unnati, Kartik, BE 1333, pp. 552-3. For the evidence that these tenements were actually acquired by the Marwaris, see Census of India, 1931, Vol. VI, Calcutta, pts.1 & 2, p. 6. The rising trend of immigration with families (as distinct from immigration of the adult male) was, indeed, reflected in the remarkable increase during the late 1910s in the proportion of women between 15 and 40 years of age in the neighbourhoods of North Calcutta, dominated by the Bengali middle class. See Census of India, 1921, Vol. VI, p. 45. The trend is also evident from frequent discussions in contemporary Bengali periodicals that the fear of malaria and water-borne diseases was inducing whole families to migrate, leaving their ancestral homes in the districts to languish. See, for example, Chattopadhyay, Basantakumar, ‘Charka’, Bharatbarsha, Baishakh, BE 1328, p. 516. Haraprasad Chattopadhyay’s detailed study of migration relating to Bengal does not, however, provide a connected and chronological account of middle class immigration into Calcutta. See Chattopadhyay, Haraprasad, op. cit., pp. 55-197, 404–46. Census of India, 1931, Vol. V, Bengal and Sikkim, pt.I, p. 288. The surveys conducted in the late 1920s by malarialogists like M O T Aiyengar found that certain parts of Western Bengal ‘have suddenly, during the past few years, become intensely malarious’. See Mukherjee, Sujata, ‘Problems of Land Transfer, Agrarian Changes and Standard of Living of Small Farmers in Bengal: 1928-1947’, PhD dissertation, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 1991, pp. 107–09.

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37 38

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As the editors of a periodical observed, ‘In fact it is the prevalence of malaria and other epidemics in rural Bengal that has comparatively speaking made Calcutta a sanatorium [...] which offers the best facilities for treatment’, CMG, 22 November 1924, p. 49. Census of India, 1921, Vol. VI, pt.1, p. 55. See for example, ‘Maphaswaler Bani’, ‘Noakhali Sagargarbhe’, Grhastha, Baishakh-Ashadh, BE 1324, pp. 741–2. For autobiographical reference to this push factor, see Haldar, Gopal, Rupnaraner Kule, Vol. 1, Calcutta, 1969, pp. 39–40. RCRC-1920, Calcutta, 1920, pp. 2–3. Middle class housing was separately mentioned in this report as severely affected by this sudden rise. Also see, for example, Biswas, Kshitish Chandra, ‘Housing Problem in Calcutta: Can It Be Solved? – I’, CMG, 13 June 1925, pp. 175–7. Biswas notes an ‘abnormal increase in population since the war’. E.g., ‘Alochana’, ‘Banger Swasthya o Malaria’, Grhastha, Baishakh, BE 1323, p. 671; (Anon.), ‘Bangalir Jatiya Jiban’, p. 663. This perception was so pervasive in print that even when the nationalists appealed to the immigrants to return to the village and initiate its rejuvenation, they also ironically reiterated this image of death and devastation. E.g., Chattopadhyay, Ramratan, ‘Jibaner Khata’, Grhastha, Baishakh-Ashadh, BE 1324, p. 627. Chattopadhyay, Basantkumar, op. cit., p. 516. For a detailed discussion of how the Depression affected tenure-holders, see Bose, Sugata, Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Order and Politics, 1919-1947, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 101–14. Bandyopadhyay, Saroj, ‘Amaratver Thikana Railo Sahitye’, Anandabajar Patrika, 7 March 1990, p. x of supplement. E.g., ‘Samayiki’, op. cit., p. 645. Basu, Prabodhchandra, ‘Bangalir Arthik Swadhinata Labher Upay’, Arthik Unnati, Baishakh, BE 1333, p. 52. By 1918–1919 the vernacular press and print initiated a pervasive discussion on the jolting impact of so many ‘problems’ emerging at the same time. In 1920, a Bharatbarsha editorial, for example, enumerated the ‘various’ problems like shortage of food, shortage of cloth, shortage of all essential commodities and the outbreak of various epidemics. Of course, added to it were the ‘housing problem’, the ‘rent problem’, and the ‘shortage of milk in Calcutta’, all specific to the transformation of Calcutta’s urban condition from the period of war. It may not be wrong to suggest that this splintering of the perception of domestic adversity was induced, to begin with, by an itemized sense of dearth deriving from the wartime shortage and high prices. Once this itemized perspective emerged and disintegrated the holistic one, all other areas of perceived discomfiture automatically appeared as so many other ‘problems’. Finally, the secular nature, the urgency and the concentration of these ‘problems’ determined why, far from reiterating the facile ‘spiritual’ solution of simple contentment, each problem generated its own universe of concrete and detailed solutions. And there was no possibility, nor inclination, of bringing these universes into an overarching spiritual rationale.

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48 49

50

51

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57 58 59

60 61 62

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E.g., Biswas, Kshitish Chandra, ‘Housing Problem in Calcutta: Can It Be Solved? – II’, CMG, 11 July 1925, p. 335. E.g., CMG, 22 November 1924, p. 49. E.g., Basu, Prafulla Chandra, The Middle Class People in Calcutta, Calcutta, 1925, pp. 8-9. E.g., Swasthya Samachar quoted in Bharatbarsha, Phalgun, BE 1327, p. 349; Ukil, Amulyacharan, ‘Bangalir Swasthya Kise Bhalo Haite Pare’, Arthik Unnati, Bhadra, BE 1333, p. 380. Chittaranjan Das drafted prominent nationalist doctors to assist in dealing with the health situation. These associations were formed in 1924 at the behest of the newly elected Swarajya Party-led executive of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. See Das, Sundarimohan, ‘Extension of Medical Relief in Calcutta’, CMG, 13 December 1924, pp. 203–05. Upendranath Mukhopadhyay’s tract A Dying Race was published in 1909. 50,000 free copies were distributed. See, Chakravarty, Papia, Hindu Response to Nationalist Ferment: Bengal 1909-1935, Calcutta, 1992, pp. 31–42. Mukhopadhyay, Upendranath, A Dying Race quoted in Ibid., pp. 32–3. E.g., Guhajaya, Amiyabala, op. cit., p. 5; (Anon.), ‘Bangalir Jatiya Jiban’, p. 662. Datta, Pradip Kumar, ‘“Dying Hindus”: Production of Hindu Communal Common Sense in Early 20th Century Bengal’, EPW, Vol. 28, No. 25, 19 June 1993, p. 1316. Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India: 1885-1947, Delhi, 1984, p. 164. (Anon.), ‘Baithak’, Ashadh, BE 1329, p. 13. Goswami, Onkar, Sahibs, Babus and Banias: Changes in Industrial Control in Eastern India, 1918-50. p. 302. Ibid., p. 305. Ibid., p. 308. Ray, Prafulla Chandra, Life and Experiences of a Bengali Chemist, Vol. II, Chuckervertty, Chatterjee and Company Limited, Calcutta, 1932, pp. 433-5, 451, 470. Mukhopadhyay, Bamandas, ‘Shishurakkha o Bangalar Dhai’, Bharatbarsha, Chaitra, BE 1327, pp. 506–07. E.g., Guhajaya, Amiyabala, Ma o Meye, Nari Bipothe Jai Keno (Why Women Go Astray) was one of the texts of the period that projected the non-Bengali servant, particularly the Oriya servant as ‘dangerous’. Significantly, this was a text whose central concern – indeed a neurotic one at that – was to control middle class female sexuality at a time when everything outside the family was, in the eyes of the author, in a dangerous and ‘polluting’ flux. The Sikhs in the city were mainly employed or self-employed in the transport and public conveyance sector. Some were employed as security guards in banks and commercial establishments. For a detailed study of the Sikh community and their history in the city, see the essay by Himadri Banerjee in this book. The depth of kinship cushioning the household was imagined on the basis of the open-ended nature of Bengali–Hindu kinship (in the male line) which flows

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69

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into larger successive circles within the vast configuration of the gotra. However, for the Bengali middle class in Calcutta in the late nineteenth century, the reassurance of depth was practically generated by the way the middle class residential pattern in the Bengali neighbourhoods, congealed by the 1870s, bore the marks of settlement along lines of common ancestral village, kin or caste. See Mukhopadhyay, Harisadhan, Kalikata: Sekaler o Ekaler (1915), 4th edn, Calcutta, 1985. Also see Sen, Sukumar, Diner Pare Din Je Gelo, Vol. 1, Calcutta, 1982, p. 99. For caste-based settlement in old Bhawanipur, see Roy Choudhury, Anjana, ‘Caste and Occupation in Bhowanipur [sic], Calcutta’, Man in India, Vol. 44, No. 3, September 1964, p. 219. For a detailed study of these perceived pressures and the material circumstances that induced these perceptions, see Banerjee, Sudeshna, ‘Spirituality and Nationalist Domesticity: Rereading the Relationship’, in the Calcutta Historical Journal, Vols. XIX and XX (combined), 1997–1998, pp. 173-204. For a particularly insightful reading of this feeling of political marginalization both at the national and provincial levels, see Chatterji, Joya, Bengal Divided, Cambridge University Press, Delhi, 1995. This moral flux, as the class itself registered it, was mainly in the domains of values, taboos and inhibitions relating to caste, occupation, intermarriage, interdining, sexuality and the patriarchal control of women and youths. The acuteness of this disturbing perception of moral flux within the class is reflected in the answers of middle class respondents to a detailed questionnaire appended to the Calcutta-specific volume of the 1931 census. It is also significant that it was at the end of the 1920s that the census authorities felt it imperative to record the change in social attitudes among the Bengali urban middle class through a questionnaire – something they had never done in the previous censuses. E.g., ‘Samayiki’, op. cit., pp. 645–7. Guhajaya, Ma o Meye, p. 151.

Calcutta, 2008. Photograph Courtesy: Madhumanti Roy.

Chapter 13 SELFING THE CITY: SINGLE WOMEN OUTSIDERS IN CALCUTTA GENDER AND THE PROCESSES OF EVERYDAY URBAN LIFE

Ipshita Chanda This chapter is born out of an attempt to understand the experiences of oneself and very many similar women as part of a process – the process of ‘selfing’ the city to which we have come as outsiders. These experiences, this apparently ‘personal’ process of adjustment and negotiation is also seen as contributing to a larger process – it is difficult to call it a process of social transformation or even change, though all the signs of such a description seem implicit in understanding the material out of which the chapter is made. Hence at this stage, I shall merely provide an account of the material and attempt to connect these accounts with each other in order to construct a context. Whether this context is the result of a change or is in itself a sign of change can then be speculated upon. The project is an attempt to give meaning to memories of sharing – hostel rooms, confidences, double dates, boyfriend problems, local guardian woes and many such realities that had not existed in the sheltered lives we had left behind in order to chase a dream – the dream of the city. In later years, this was the experience of many students and friends that I could identify with – only now the scene has shifted to PG digs, shared flats, rented accommodation, and the problems could all be classified under the large, loose category of ‘staying or sticking on’. Somewhere along the way, Calcutta had caught us, and we were fighting tooth and nail not to have to go back to the homes we had left behind. Many of us have succeeded, many of us are on the verge of breakthroughs, some of us have married city men, some have decided to club together our lives with other ‘outsider’ women – but in all cases, we are women who have come from outside, and are now in various stages of intimacy with the city that we have chosen to chart our future in.

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The project first involved identifying as many women who have come from outside as possible, in as many diverse walks of life. Thus, the present sample consists of 200 odd women whose professions range from doctors to domestic service;1 some of the respondents are not employed at present and are looking out for the ‘right’ job; some of the women I met told me about their friends who had got married in order to be able to remain in Calcutta, some told me about other friends whose parents had told them that they were unable to find grooms for them in their small towns, so they should look for jobs and husbands in the big city – the parents were willing to allow them the freedom of choice. The age range of respondents is currently from 18 to 65. We have thus far circulated a questionnaire in Bangla and English; some were answered in Hindi,2 though the resource person who located these women was able to convey the questions to them in Bangla; some were filled in by the resource person herself, though initially, she was not too sure whether the responses from the women concerned would be ‘correct’; needless to say, these were the two women from Ranchi who had come to Calcutta to look after homes and baby-sit. I had initially planned a series of group discussions with those who were willing to talk about the experience of coming to the city and living here alone; I felt this would be quite simple, because my earlier experience with a survey on women’s responses to the popular media had met with overwhelming enthusiasm – we held a number of really fruitful and very enjoyable discussions and I made a whole lot of friends in the bargain. However, this time round, I was taught a different lesson, one that has led me to think a little more subtly about the process that I am trying to study and the insight that all themes do not necessarily demand the same kind of methodological procedures in participatory research. Indeed, my primary problem with labeling what I have so far done, in this project and in another that is now a book,3 is ‘ethnography’ arising out of these insights that I have been able to come to in the course of the work itself. In this instance, I was unable to cobble together a group for discussion, because most of the women were too busy with their professional lives – indeed, I ought to have thought of this before, for while the respondents to the popular culture survey were homemakers as well as professionals, those who were the target respondents in this one had to be able to earn enough to support themselves independently in the city, and this meant, invariably, a particular position in their professional hierarchies, which left them with little time to themselves, certainly not enough to meet unknown women and discuss housing/landlady/security/fears and dreams. In fact, one of them put it lucidly, ‘I thought this was going to be an anonymous affair, I only had to respond – this meeting business sounds like some sort of AA4

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stuff – I hadn’t bargained for that’. In fact, out of the present sample, one cited Calcutta’s laid-back attitude as the reason for stagnation, and said that this would eventually lead them to seek further opportunities and larger pay-packets elsewhere. On the flip side, respondents in the current sample cited this very ‘laissez faire’ attitude for the greater measure of security that single women living in PG digs and operating on para streets on their own enjoy, compared to other metros: ‘All said and done, Calcutta is safer than other metros simply bcoz it is more traditional.’ One respondent who has shifted to Delhi now after nine years in Calcutta compared her past experiences with the present situation and came to the conclusion that: People do not look upon single women as prey as they do in Delhi […] one does not need to judge and measure before making friends like they do here in Delhi. In general, the outlook of people in Calcutta is uncomplicated and laissez faire.

(Designer and Artist, from Agartala, who lived in Calcutta for eight years before shifting to Delhi for work.) While another, based in Pune, but currently in Calcutta for training found the very idea of a survey like this: [...] very Calcutta. Its way too long. I’m doing it as a personal favour. I didn’t exactly understand the objective of this [...] I’d rather stay out of this officially.

(Customer Care Executive, from Pune, age 32.) The simplest conclusion that can be drawn from this is the obvious one – that certain ‘amenities’ are built into the casual attitude that the city has towards life in general; these are amenities from the point of view of women from outside who are living here on their own. A study of the place of origin of respondents shows that most of them come from small and large towns in the eastern and north-eastern region. Some parents were willing to let the girl go to Calcutta when she insisted that she had to leave her small town at the end of higher secondary education, as one respondent, a 26-year old working in business process outsourcing, put it: My parents didn’t let me go to Pune. I was totally ziddi abt leaving Dhanbad after +2, so they said ok go to Cal.

Others were ‘permitted’ to come here because: I had no choice. I had to come to Calcutta or stay in Malda. I am a Bengali and my parents, esp. my father felt I would be safe and secure in Calcutta.

(Computer Professional, age 24.)

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She also realizes that this is probably the limit to which she can go: I want to go out, but this is not possible for me as my family is very conservative. I have refused placement in Hyderabad where starting salary level is more than what my boss is getting here. But this sacrifice/compromise I have made keeping family peace in mind.

Still others found that given the location of their places of origin, this was the nearest city where they could find what they were looking for. As one woman from Bhubaneswar, when asked whether it was easy to get a job in Calcutta compared to her place of origin, replied: It’s the same. But here you have some choices at least whereas in Bhubaneswar I had limited choices if I wanted to work in a newspaper only. I have sort of settled here and uprooting myself for another job wouldn’t be easy for me. Besides, I am nearer home working in Calcutta.

( Journalist, age 29) It is possible that the very ‘coming’ of women to the city where they have no immediate family, where they are thrust into completely unknown territory and expected to fend for themselves, from organizing laundry to paying bills, is a choice informed by their innate desire to break free. But where did it begin? Looking into Bangla literature is not much good. The Sribilashes of Rabindranath’s Chaturanga, or Opus of Bibhutibhushan’s Aparajito are easily accessible; the ‘mess’ culture of old Calcutta, these ancient, mildewed bastions of male camaraderie and creativity fill the work of male writers who have themselves often come from outside Calcutta and have romanticized their struggles.5 Readers in Bangla can easily recall the yearning of Jibanananda for the beautiful face of rural Bangla even while he walked the streets of Calcutta lost in reverie, his subtly cruel picture of the midnight city or its fatal lure that prevents him from going back home until it is too late. For the petty clerk in Rabindranath’s ‘Baansi’, it is a place to flee to – flee from the responsibility of marriage, followed, however by the still sadness of love. And these are only a few of the many documents of the male outsider’s experience in the city. The established doyennes of Bangla literature were firmly rooted in Calcutta soil, neither Ashapurna, Mahasweta, Nabaneeta nor even the Mallikas and Mandakrantas came from small towns outside Calcutta to seek their destinies. They didn’t, because in their times, women didn’t. We have come across at least four women so far whose ages range between 40 and 60, roughly the ages of the generation of women now at the height of their powers in Bangla literature. Our respondents have been here for 20 odd years, but it is only in the last seven or eight years that the

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phenomenon of the woman from outside Calcutta has entered Bangla literature. (However, how many of us have read Aparajita’s ‘Debolina’ or ‘Chaander Gaye Chaand’6) These novels talk about the experiences of women like our respondents, exploring the growth of the mind, so to speak, of women who have decided to make the city their home. Perhaps now, such women are increasing – the barriers to women’s mobility, the entrenched ideas about their roles, limits and goals are in the process of transformation. One of the respondents, 29 years old, working first in advertising and then as technical writer, explains it thus: No one wants to stay in the provinces or districts anymore – in the sixties and seventies, it was men who came here in search of jobs, futures, whatever – in the nineties, it is girls. Parents who aspire for better things tell them, go and do something, a course, a degree, and in one case I know, at least, a girl who used to stay in my PG, they were four sisters, no brother, her father said he wanted each of his daughters to be a son, but her mother said something even more interesting, she said, we don’t have enough money to get boys for all of you, so if you go to Calcutta, get jobs, look for your own husbands as well. Three of the sisters are here, they live in the same PG, their greatest lament is that we have lived here for so long, worked in offices, we still haven’t found a suitable boy.

Does this mean that the journey to the city is a quest for the suitable boy, ultimately? Are the appearances of emancipation and self-reliance ultimately subsumed by this most primitive of all desires? Perhaps one can interpret it as the meaning that the quest for stability in a city is now defined as part of the ‘normal’ process of ‘growing up’ in the lives of women from smaller places, a necessary stage in their quest for the self ; just as the women’s movement has made women’s working a ‘normal’ part of this same process. Women from smaller towns, who feel stifled in their environs of origin are now amenable to the idea of moving to an unknown, and often apparently inhospitable environment of the city to fulfill this necessity – why this should be contradictory to their desire to settle down in marriage, why the latter desire should be seen as contradictory to or exclusive of the former, is a debate that must figure, eventually, on the agenda of feminist theory and practice in India. The experience of the survey does indicate that not many of the women who are thus struggling to relocate or have relocated and are now making efforts to continue in a place that they have to strive to make homes in, do not wish to return. As some of them put it, returning to their home towns for brief periods of holiday may be a welcome break, but permanent return is not in their plans – ‘What will I do there?’, or ‘I have come away because

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there was nothing for me to do there, why should I go back now?’ are common responses to the question ‘How would you feel if you had to return to your place of origin permanently?’ This indicates that the relocation in a city is not easy, but it has come to define a quest for further self-fulfillment in terms of expanding choices and options that women feel are now their right, rather than a luxury. Very few had pleasant first experiences to report, most have complaints about the systems of living available, there is a litany of problems that crop up at every stage and must be dealt with by the woman herself, but all the respondents either felt that these realities have made them ‘self-confident’, ‘mature’, ‘grown up’, ‘able to look after myself’ – all construed as benefits rather than burdens, because they contribute to a certain fulfillment. These women have left their home towns because their qualifications would not fetch them jobs in their hometowns, and they have found that the jobs available would have merely contributed to the motions of ‘working’ without being satisfied. As one 29-year-old from Ranchi put it: Coming to Calcutta helped me to discover myself and decide what I wanted to do […] exposed me to wider choices as regards occupation than my hometown ever could have […] I met numerous people who were socially aware and dared to go into non-traditional occupations which helped me to take the leap myself. Had it not been for Calcutta I could not have transcended the expectations of my parents/friends/neighbours back home and go into something conventional like MBA.

This clearly means that even the stage of ‘having a job’ as contributing to one’s self-fulfillment has been transcended – now it is also a matter of the right job, and with that, the quest for the setting in which this job can be best performed. In fact, most of the women interviewed thus far feel that Calcutta’s ‘laissez-faire’ attitude, mentioned earlier, would deter them from reaching even further in their professions; thus they were not averse to moving further afield if their professions demanded it, or simply for the satisfaction of doing better, in terms of money as well as professional fulfillment. In a sense, the initial move to Calcutta has made them aware of the opportunities as well as of their ability to cope with the problems – they now seem ready to follow their dreams further. But that is not to romanticize the very real problems that they face. Calcutta does not seem ready to provide for the onrush of citoyennes from outside. The primary problem is that of finding accommodation that is safe, clean and reasonably priced – asking for all this and then seeing that you do not have to spend hours commuting to your place of work as

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well is almost like asking for the moon. Here are two responses, which, taken together, delineate this basic problem quite eloquently: In conservative neighbourhoods like Baghajatin, with the parar dada culture, it’s so unsafe that girls have had to leave at one night’s notice only. I have always tried to maintain a low profile in the PG because I know my temper can be bad once provoked.

(Advertising Professional, from Jamshedpur, age 29.) I want home cooked food bcoz this situation (landlady does not provide food and doesn’t allow cooking arrangements either) is bad for my health. I am spending too much money on food. I am saving on conveyance bcoz office is at walking distance, but that money is going in buying food.

(Computer Professional, from Malda, age 26.) Apart from this, there is also, even in a city considered traditionally safe, as Calcutta is, the feeling of insecurity. As one respondent put it, if you have lived here for 50 years, no one in the para will dare to take you lightly. But otherwise, the danger that lurks beneath the surface civility and the true meaning of ‘concern’ and care resurfaces again and again. I quote one lucid analysis of the situation: People who are permanent residents of the city are benign as long as the girl assigns them the role of moral protector/guardian. Once you assert yourself or simply do your own thing, it becomes everyone’s business to know you, judge you and condemn you.

(Advertising Professional, from Jamshedpur, age 29.) Many women have felt this contradiction – the very reason that had led them to venture out has now returned in a so-called metro, with its apparently progressive population, where, as the same woman quoted above put it: There was this major culture shock when people asked you on your face what caste are you? An aspiring filmmaker in BA informed me he was a Barendra Brahmin. An activist in MA clarified his gotra as Bharadwaj.

This does set the ‘outsider’ apart from the ‘insider’, and leads one to speculate whether the lifestyles of the insiders can actually be a pointer to the reality of the city’s hospitality to women, whether this acceptance of certain forms of behaviour on the part of a woman is predicated on how long she has lived in a locality and who she is related to, rather than what

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she is herself. Women who come form outside feel this subtle subterranean distinction acutely, and cope with it in different ways. Survival skills include: […] even when I wear jeans, I wear a salwar kurta the next day, or a sari, so that people can see I wear everything and I am not an ultra mod girl. When my parents come, I introduce them to the mudi shop, I take my mother to the parlour so that my locality people know that I have a family like them.

(Marketing Executive, from Ranchi, age 27.) But they also feel powerless and vulnerable, feelings that recur in their assessment of their lives, and lead to potentially volatile situations. Witness this: My landlord’s son is a bit nervy. I mean he likes chatting up when I am working on the comp. At night, he’ll suddenly pop out and say hi, let’s chat and all that, but my landlady is the perfect sweetheart and I can’t tell aunty that ur son’s being a creep, she’ll be so hurt.

(Business Process Outsourcing Executive, from Dhanbad, age 24.) What is the priority here? The relatively habitable PG, or the regularly threatened self-respect that plays as an undercurrent to this woman’s daily experience? Can she negotiate these pressures and hold down a demanding job, in addition to all that is necessary for her to do if she has to survive in the city? These are questions that the survey has begun to unveil – it remains now to address them. But that is easier said than done, for I have learnt, in the meantime, that certain questions have to be asked in certain ways in order to elicit answers – people have demarcated their lives into different areas, and they operate differently in each of them – a pedestrian enough finding on the face of it, but one that I had not paid enough heed to at the outset. I am now in the process of trying to negotiate some kind of exchange beyond mere question–answering, but not in the face-to-face format which had worked so well in other circumstances, for most women are reluctant to reveal themselves. Apart from time constraints in being unable to meet other women like themselves, there is also the reality of keeping a low profile – after being eminently visible as women who live alone, work outside, keep odd hours, get dropped home late by male colleagues, it is best not to rock the boat any further. This is the irony that I would like us to remember from the consideration of this phenomenon of ‘selfing’ the city. Initially, when I was attempting to mould the many conversations with many women into an account of our collective struggle to self the city,7 I had begun from the understanding that the operations that we perform upon the given space ‘organized by the techniques of socio-cultural production’, our manoeuvres as ‘users’ to ‘reappropriate’

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this space constitute what de Certeau8 (1984, p. xii) designates as a ‘culture’. However, I could not agree with his characterization of these operational combinations constituting culture, since for him, they do not imply a ‘return to individuality’ (1984, p. xi). In searching for an ‘operational logic’ for the ‘schemata of action’, he argues that ‘the subjects or the persons who are their authors or vehicles’ are not the concern of his theorization. But, how then are these operations, these actions performed if they are not performed by subjects? De Certeau himself asserts that they are not arbitrary. They belong to an indescribable and immemorial time informed by generations of subjectivity. Hence he implies that, it is possible to think of these operations as less inscribed by specific subjectivities, and more as belonging to the realm of historically learned, subconscious performances of habit. However, for women who come to the city, there are no ‘generations of subjectivity’ that inform these operations enabling us to negotiate the city – we do not have access to the ‘immemorial’ time where, according to de Certeau9 (quoted in Conley, 2000, p. 57), subjectivity that underlies the practices of the everyday is forged, because no such repository of habit is available to our ancestresses who have ‘come before us’ and are few and far between, and if the age-related difference between respondents is anything to go by, the older women, whose conception of the struggles and problems and their solutions could contribute to the task of crafting ‘generations of subjectivity’, are clearly circumspect about their achievements. To start with, the women above 40 who have responded are fewer in number than the 20–35 age group.10 Secondly, they are better placed in their professional lives and for this reason, the possibility of changing cities is not open to them. But the road that has brought them to these heights seem to be one of extreme caution, the path that only angels will dare to tread. They are quite certain that since they have ‘survived’, younger women can do the same – but the latter must lead the ascetic lives that they themselves claim to have led.11 The other factor that seems a little disturbing in their response is the reply to the question ‘Do you know women like yourself? Have you ever helped any of them or asked for their help?’ I am still reluctant to read the negative response to this question from the older women as significant – rather I would interpret it in two ways. First, they are perhaps too busy to network like the younger women who party and work with equal zeal, and so make friends in larger numbers. Secondly, the lifestyle of the forty plus single ‘outsider’ woman is hemmed in by certain limitations placed upon her by herself. Either this is the desire to be left alone by nosey neighbours and matchmaking relatives, or it is the careful construction of a shield around herself for security’s sake. Surely these women have not

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been unaware of the struggles faced by younger colleagues and acquaintances who have come, like them, from outside? Surely, they have extended help? Why are they judgmental of the younger women, why do they prefer to construct a distance between themselves and the younger women? While they want to go in for ‘social work’ in later life, how come they are not open to opportunities to forge a community between people of their kind, make available their experiences and add to the ‘generations of subjectivity’ that de Certeau has not explicitly defined as male, but given the circumstances, has been male by default? This is a question I am particularly exercised by because this is where I must locate myself. Indeed, the question came alive to me when reading the responses. I almost dismissed the forty plus group as ‘older women’, objectively slotting them as more conservative, and therefore not in tune with the problems the younger women faced. Then, I realized that they were as old as I was! How could they not respond to distress calls, heart-to-hearts, threats and triumphs of students, younger friends and colleagues? There is a mystery here that remains to be probed. But also, after many of the crucial stages of the survey, it appears that a process of ‘selfing the city’ has begun and the foundations of some traditions have been laid as well. It may not be the ‘older’ women who have begun to take these initiatives, but the women who, though young in years, are older in terms of experience – can we argue that this too is a gift of the city? In the current sample, at least three women have clearly indicated their desire to take on the responsibility of getting other younger female relatives over, to go through the same experience that they themselves have gone through – only this time around, they are there to provide the security of accommodation, counseling and support system that the woman herself lacked. But the experiences and insights that they have earned are yet to be made available to others like them immediately outside their close circle. Social realities seem responsible for this – we have enabled women to work, instilled in them the desire to move out of known and familiar locations to do so, appointed them jobs that have irregular hours – all steps in the direction charted out by the ideology of the women’s movement; but here, as in most other spheres, we have enabled women to walk this path without taking into account the context within which these women and their choices form a part. Thus, after making the most difficult adjustments and negotiations, women look upon their feats in silent and personal satisfaction – not a meagre return by any means – but are still reluctant to make this unique experience a part of the social process by highlighting their struggles and triumphs, and thereby making it a part

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of social knowledge by sharing them out over a wider circle, and a part of ‘normal’ sociability, wherein the dilemma of not fending off the unwelcome advances of the landlady’s son in order to keep a suitable P G accommodation cannot arise. This survey is more than a set of questions to be written up – it is, as some of the resource persons, all outsiders to the city themselves, put it, an adventure, a process of making friends, and an attempt to bring the unrecorded heroics of ‘selfing’ the city to common notice. This may rob the future generations of outsider women from the exhilaration, the stress and the dejection of making a home in the city, but for how long can society’s demand for submissive, feminine, ‘stay at home’ women be forced upon those who have actively done just the opposite? Writing in 1938, Louis Wirth12 describes city life thus: While traditional ties of human association are weakened, urban existence involves a much greater degree of interdependence between man and man and a more complicated, fragile and volatile form of mutual interrelations over which the individual as such can scarcely exert any control.

All the more reason then, to bond together – and when in bonding, perhaps the ‘scarcely’ in Wirth’s assertion can very very slowly be changed to ‘sometimes’ and thus provide a more hospitable socius for women to seize the opportunities that we all seem to agree are theirs for the taking.

NOTES 1

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Out of the total number of respondents, 90 women were in professions ranging from baby-sitting to financial accounting. 97 were students, some (30, to be precise) had just come to the city in 2005, the end of the first year of the survey. At present, we are also in the process of tracking down some of those who responded once, two years ago to see what change, if any, has occurred in their relationship with the city in the time that has passed, especially in the case of first time citoyennes. Out of the working women, 70 responded in English and 30 in Bangla or Hindi. Out of the students, 67 responded in English and 30 in Bangla. Among the respondents in English, 40 used email – they had virtually (pun intended) no direct contact with either me or the resource person, but actually, some of them began to email the resource person and/or me directly, first in connection with the survey, but later in connection with other matters to do with cityliving. Chanda, Ipshita, Packaging Freedom: Feminism and Popular Culture, Stree, Calcutta, 2002. Alcoholics anonymous. Kar, Bodhisattav and Roy, Subhalaxmi, ‘Messing with the Bhadralok: Towards a Social History of the Mess-Houses in Calcutta, 1890’s-1900’s, Sarai fellowship.

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A study based in Hyderabad by Shefali and Nabaneetha, entitled ‘The Space Between: Women’s Hostels as Urban Spaces’, also on a Sarai fellowship, focuses on this too. Majumdar, Tilottama, ‘Chaander Gaye Chaand’, Desh Puja Sankhya, Ananda Bazaar Patrika group, 2001, and Aparajita, ‘Debolina’, Desh Puja Sankhya, 1996, both published by Ananda Bazaar Patrika group. Chanda, Ipshita, ‘Selfing the City: The Myth of Calcutta and the Culture of Everyday Life’ in Gupta, Nilanjana, ed., Culture Studies: An Introduction for Indian Readers, Worldview Press, New Delhi, 1994 and ‘Walking in the City’ in Ward, G, ed., The de Certeau Reader, Blackwell, New York, 2000, pp. 1001-18. de Certeau, Michel, Introduction to The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Rendall, S, University of California Press, Berkley, California, 1984, pp. xi–xxiv. Quoted in Tom Conley, Introduction to “Other Cities: Cultural Politics”, part II in .Ward ed. The de Certeau Reader New York Blackwell, 2000, p 57. Among the working women, most respondents were within the age range of 20 to 39. 60 women were within the 20–9 age bracket, and 21 in the 30–9 age group. Among students too, the majority were in their early twenties. To the question ‘Is Calcutta a safe city for women who come from outside and have no families to fall back upon?’ this is a sample of responses from women who are seen as ‘older’, i.e. above 40. 44-year-old gynaecologist, from Burdwan: ‘[...] if you keep your decency. At my age dangers are minimized. But I was also young. So again as I have said, it depends on the girl. Being unmarried and young if a girl lives alone, everyone is curious. They observe her minutely. Then if they think she is easy and a fast type of girl, they will not hesitate. Even in Calcutta where Bengali men are more homely or cowardly, there is great need for girls to be modest. Women staying with families will blame the girl from outside, not the family men.’ 53-year-old doctor from Silchar: ‘I want to give a message to the girls of today. They are very mod and their time and attention goes in fashion and boyfriends. They will enjoy life, why not? But they forget that every month, money order/cheque comes from their father and mother who sacrifice many comforts for them so that they will study and further their careers. So the parents must be kept in mind. If girls consider their parents’ wishes they will automatically be safe because they will not do things or acts that will bring danger or shame to them.’ 42-year-old ‘educationist in a reputed English medium school’: ‘[…] it depends on the woman concerned. Her bearing, her profession and her conduct will determine her safety. Nowadays, so many young girls come to Calcutta. They must be careful to be away from temptations. But society has also become disorderly. Earlier, there was a public decorum but now respect for women has declined and even women of a mature age are subject to disrespect.’ Wirth, Louis, ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’ in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1, 1938, pp. 1–24.