I chanced upon an article in the Daily Star which preseted a counter
view to Taj hasmis's theory of class conflict being converted into
communalism.
Letters to Editor
Communalism in undivided Bengal
Ibne Azad, 10/3 Mirpur, Dhaka
It was disappointing to read the article written by Taj Hashmi
because it parroted the Muslim League's same old version of history
of Pakistan as the struggle of Bengali Muslims against the oppressive
and exploiting Hindus. Although he prefaced his essay with a
conceptual analysis on distinguishing communalism with religious
revivalism, it does not clarify why Muslim communalism leads
inevitably towards medievalism. Taj Hashmi's supposed Marxist twist
to this theory is that it was a class struggle of exploited and poor
Muslim peasants against the rich Hindu land owners. What he
suppresses is that neither Hindus nor Muslims constituted a neat
category of homogenous class in the Marxist sense. More important, it
was the colonial British state which exploited the peasants and
appropriated their surplus. Hindu zamindars were mere intermediaries.
So the real class enemy of Bengali peasants (both Hindu and Muslim)
was the colonial British rulers. It was really very clever of the non-
Bengali Muslim League leadership that they could successfully
mobilise the Bengali Muslims on the false belief that Hindus were
their enemies and realise Pakistan by not waging war against the
British but against the Hindus.
The debacle at Plassey did not affect the Bengali speaking Muslim
peasants a bit as they were nowhere in the power structure of Nawabi
Bengal. The civil service, finance, trade all were exclusive Hindu
domain because they were the majority and traditionally they held
those services for many centuries. Even commanding posts in the
Bengal army were held by Rajput Hindus. Establishment of Muslim
monarchy in the 13th century did not change this hierarchy in Bengal.
Even up to the end of the 19th century, the leaders of Bengal's
Muslims were urdu speaking non-Bengalis of Uttar Pradesh living in
Calcutta, Murshidabad etc. Only with the rise of AKM Fazlul Huq the
Bengali Muslims for the first time found their own spokesman.
Unfortunately, he succumbed to the non-Bengali leaders of the Muslim
League and the subsequent history of Bengali Muslims in 23 years of
Hindu free East Pakistan is the proof of falsehood of the Pakistani
version of history which Taj Hashmi endorsed. Communalism did not
originate due to Hindu Bhadralok's attitude towards the Bengali
Muslims. The Hindu upper caste and Ashraf non-Bengali Muslims behaved
the same way towards the low-caste Bengali speaking Hindu and Muslim
peasants. It was the culture of aristocracy in pre-capitalist society
of Bengal. Communalism was fostered as a policy by Muslim League
leadership to protect the privilege and wealth of Muslim Talukdars by
fighting Congress in the political game of acquiring position and
power in the central government of independent India. The Brits
abetted this policy by enacting Communal Award of 1932 which divided
the Bengalis on communal line politically. Communalism was not the
struggle of Bengali Muslims to end their class exploitation as Taj
Hashmi explains. The communal thinking in Tagore and Sharat
Chatterjee highlighted by the Paki intellectuals did not deter the
Bengali Muslims to accept and place them in the hall of fame of great
Bengalis.
The Swadeshi movement ( 1905-1911 ) was the first armed struggle
against the British colonialism organisd by Hindu middle class
comparable to Sinn Fein. Taj Hasmi describes it as Hindu rivivalism
as Muslim League historiography does.
There were many middle class Bengali Muslim politicians and literati
who opposed the 1905 partition, fought for unity and integration of
Bengali Muslims and Hindus on cultural and ethnic ground and never
succumbed to Muslim League's communal politics. Poet Kazi Nazrul
Islam was the brightest among them and for this he was honoured as
the National Poet of Bengal in 1929 in Calcutta by the Hindu elite.
Taj Hashmi also repeats the Paki story about the great Calcutta
killing. But who called the Direct Action Day? And who were in the
government then?
Communalism as an ideology of Muslim exclusivity is still very
powerful in Bangladesh and Bengali Muslim bourgeois has made it a
foundation of their politics. With the bugeoning culture of
Islamisation propagated by the ruling political regime and Jihadi
ideals permeating the urban and rural poor classes educated in
Madrssahs , Bangladesh is destined to remain in the backwater of
medievalism. Meanwhile the upper caste Bengali Hindu elite became
Maxist and progressed towards creating a modern, egalitarian and
secular society in the other part of Bengal. Taj Hashmi fails to
clarify why Hindu communalism transformed into Marxism in West Bengal
and Muslim communalism is drifting towards revivalism in Bangladesh.
I'd request Taj Hashmi to interpret the history of 20th century
Bengal in the perspective of a Bengali nationalist and discard the
intellectual baggage of Paki ideology.
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