One of the the real benefits of the web is the cyber-friendships you form. Over the past couple of years I have corresponded with Joanna Kirkpatrick, a retired American academic who taught in Bangladesh in the 1970s and has retained a strong attachment to the country. She has put together one of the best websytes on rickshaws (rickshas) availble. I have listed it before but will do so again as its been updated. It can be found at http://www.ricksharts.com. It contains a lot of excellent photographs plus a list of essential readings. Thoroughly recommended is Metaphor and Motive in Bangladesh Ricksha Arts: A Burkean Reading.
My conversations with Joanna have prompted me to reflect on 'why Bangladesh'? I can remember watching the BBC dispatches in 1971 with a great deal of interest, and horror. As I remember it some of the scenes were very graphic including one where a person walked up to a man and engaged him in conversation and then pulled out a knife and cut his throat. All of this was captured on film, including the death throes of the man as he lay on the ground. Images like this don't ever go away.
In 1972 I returned with my wife and child to Perth after living and working in England and Canada. In 1972 Perth was even more of a backwater than it is today but it provided opportunities not available elsewhere. One of those was return to formal study at the University of Western Australia where I had earlier been an English major undergraduate. When I returned to UWA I checked out the English curriculum and found they had added one book to the syllabus in 7 years. I had been tempted to study at the University of Alberta where I could have studied Poetry of World War 1 (which interested me) among other subjects. The lack of development and choice in English led me to ask 'what do I know least about?. The answer was Asian culture and history, so I enrolled in a history degree and studied Southeast Asian History (Chris Wake), Indian history (Hugh Owen) and Chinese history (Les Marchant). I was extraordinary lucky as UWA then had one of the best Asian history programs in Australia and the South Asian program was outstanding. I was exceedingly well taught and encouraged to go on.
My first dissertation for Honours was the Namasudras of Bengal, an interesting out caste group who followed an unusual path to political empowerment. The usual path for caste uplift was the process of sanskritisation, that is, the lowly caste adopts the practices of the higher Hindu castes. The Namasudras didn't see much future in this and decided to maintain a degree of caste autonomy through education and economic activity. A number of prominent Namasudras became lawyers and then politicians and in 1937, when the British finally allowed a degree of regional, provincial political autonomy the Namasudras supported Fazlul Huq (The Lion of Bengal) and his Muslim party rather than the Hindu dominated Congress. They were rewarded with a number of ministries in the provincial government and for a time exercised power on a regional basis. From 1937 to 1940 the province of Bengal had a Muslim/Namasudra government, which suggested that there were other paths to preferment for the lower castes other than sanskritisation and membership of Congress. In 1947, at partition, the bulk of the Namasudra population chose to stay with Pakistan and it was only in 1971, when they were singled out by Bengali nationalists as a fifth columnists, to closely identified with Pakistan did they leave in large numbers. They are now dispersed throughout the world with quite large communities in Canada and the UK. Interestingly, I am told by a friend of namasudra descent, that this history has largely been forgotten by these communities.
I recently re-read the dissertation and thought it held up rather well although there are two serious lapses. Firstly I didn't pay suffcient attention to the alternative voices in the Namasudra community - those who supported Congress in the Nationalist struggle and the conclusion needs strengthening.
So when the opportunity came to teach in Bangladesh it seemed to me that a certain symmetry was at work!
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A new chapter has started in last ten years.This includes everything .And a Discourse and identity name , SSEJSANTOKOTHA and NAMASSEJ .May be in next few decades this will gain momentum.This is necessary in addition to all the movements they are carrying out.
ReplyDeleteMany communities which defied the caste system and tried to uphold its clan identity have been or could be found till to-date .All of them tried to put forward some rituals and propose a Avtar Like Raamkrishna or like that as the Namasudras have also done through Sri Harichand Thakur .They related him to Chaitanyadev to Krishna and ultimately contradicted the reformer's principle of non-idolatry and monotheism. They completely denied the role of Rev Cecil Silas Mead and also of his preachings which originated from Bible ).But they never proposed a discourse which is always there in the community memory of their community and also of their Country or land or Verhudtbhumi.As a result all of them were crippled in the course of history and erased out with the cruelest brutality of negligence and a kind of hidden apartheid.
So what the writer have observed is quite natural and has happened to so many communities.
The thing is that an out- caste can only be included in Hindu-Society only as a community ( i.e. an association of clans or gotras ,if it be found) neither as a caste nor as a varna because no historical support could be found unless those incestuous stories of caste Hindus as they destroyed their clan identity for caste-advantage and opportunism and mentions others as Tribal ( what a stupidity? Have not they once come from some Tribe?)
All these things have been included in SSEJSANTOKOTHA ,A Revelation. They have realised there mistakes .Seven santos selflessly dedicated their life for this and many others helped it to be written down and edited.
Many International Organisations have acknowledged the correct and Holy path of Brahma-Parameswar and His messenger-in-dream Verhudtbrahma ( a new Revelation ).
The problem remains how they communicate this in their community members.
This discourse does not interfere in anyway with the socio-political movements .It does neither dictates anyone in respect of that .Every community requires a divine citadel in the depth of their mind .This is that citadel .They will survive only if it keeps on swinging on and on. This is the history of every ostracize community.
Hope your love be showered on the NAMASSEJAS .