‘no matter how, jogendranath had to be defeated’: the scheduled castes federation and the making...

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2012 49: 321Indian Economic Social History ReviewDwaipayan Sen

1947−Federation and the making of partition in Bengal, 1945'No matter how, Jogendranath had to be defeated': The Scheduled Castes

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‘No matter how, Jogendranath

had to be defeated’: The Scheduled

Castes Federation and the making of

partition in Bengal, 1945–1947

Dwaipayan Sen

Department of History

The University of Chicago, IL

This article offers an explanation for the defeat of Jogendranath Mandal and the Scheduled

Castes Federation in the context of partition-era Bengal. Departing from analyses of

Scheduled Caste integration, it explores the Federation’s efforts at creating an independent

political platform through a strategic alliance with the Muslim League. To this end, it traces

Mandal’s and the Federation’s trajectory through the following key moments: the anti-Poona

Pact day and Day of Direct Action, the 1946 election, Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s election to the

Constituent Assembly, the Calcutta and East Bengal riots, Mandal’s nomination to the In-

terim Government and the agitation against Partition. In so doing, it tries to show how the

Federation’s defeat in Bengal was at least in part a consequence of the Congress’ efforts to

engineer its marginalisation, as well as the Congress’ and Hindu Mahasabha’s agitation for

the Partition of that province. The Hindu majoritarian impulse that led to the Partition in

Bengal thus crippled the Federation’s struggle for Dalit political autonomy.

Keywords: Jogendranath Mandal, Scheduled Castes Federation, partition, Bengal, the politics of

caste and communalism

Introduction

The proposition is two-fold: first, that the success of the Congress’ and Hindu

Mahasabha’s demand that Bengal be partitioned necessarily entailed their delib-

erate defeat of Jogendranath Mandal and the Scheduled Castes Federation; se-

cond, and following from this, that the partition itself be grasped as signifying a

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, 3 (2012): 321–64

SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC

DOI: 10.1177/0019464612455273



322 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


moment that foreclosed possibilities for the further development of Mandal’s

and the Federation’s advocacy of Dalit political autonomy. Inured as we are to

understanding partition’s significance within the rubric of the communal impasse

between unmarked Hindus and Muslims, our historiographical sensitivities re-

main insufficient to understanding the peculiar problematic that the partition

posed for Mandal and his hardly insubstantial following in the Scheduled Castes

Federation.1

Received historiography has it that Dalits were largely responsive to the Con-

gress’ and Mahasabha’s anti-Muslim exhortations in their bid to consolidate Hindu

unity.2 No doubt there exists evidence of their participation in communal vio-

lence and their receptiveness to ideologies and practices of Hindu communal unity.

It is indeed true that many amongst them supported the demand for Partition. Yet

it is necessary to place within the same analytical field the substantial evidence

that exists of their deep-seated reservations with the Congress’ and Mahasabha’s

projects of anti-Muslim Hindu unity orchestrated by caste Hindu leaders, as well

these nationalist parties’ efforts to nullify the Federation. Reconceived thus,

I suggest that Mandal and the Federation’s protracted marginalisation, which origi-

nated in the critical period under consideration, might well be grasped as a neces-

sity conjoined to the majoritarian imperatives of Indian nationalism in Bengal. As

I will show, Mandal’s was a critique of the constitutively communal terms on

which the transfer of power and Partition were decided. Achieving the long sought

after Hindu unity of these years entailed manufacturing the defeat of Dalit politi-

cal autonomy in Bengal.

In what follows, I attempt to defend these propositions by locating the

Federation’s participation in the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day against the

backdrop of the two parties’ recent strategic political alliance; detailing the cir-

cumstances of the 1946 elections which resulted in the Congress winning the

majority of reserved Scheduled Caste legislative seats; documenting Mandal’s

attempts at getting Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly; narrating

Mandal’s quite exceptional view on the Calcutta riots; discussing his role in the

Interim Government of India; elucidating the significance of unity between Dalit

and Muslim political parties at a time when this was near unthinkable; and

finally, by assessing the fate of Mandal’s anti-partition campaign. In so doing,

1 I have described Mandal’s following thus, because of the debatable view that Mandal and the

Federation were essentially marginal political forces amongst Dalits in Bengal. It should also be

borne in mind that Mandal and the Federation drew on support from some of the veteran Scheduled

Caste MLAs of the time, who either did not contest, or lost, in the 1946 elections. I am thinking in

particular of leaders like Amulyadhan Ray, Anukul Chandra Das or Rasik Lal Biswas, some of whom,

despite being elected Congressmen, subsequently experienced a deep disillusionment with the

Congress.2 See, in particular, Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity; Chatterji, Bengal Divided.



‘No matter how, Jogendranath had to be defeated’ / 323


I touch on key moments in Mandal’s and the Federation’s trajectory through these

final two years of British rule in India.

Another view of the partition is possible, by bringing to bear his and the Fed-

eration’s critique of the Congress’ claim to represent the Dalits on the processes

through which the decision to divide Bengal were reached. I hope to show that

the partition in Bengal was as much about a nationalist resolution of the caste

question, as it undoubtedly was about the politics of religious conflict between

Hindus and Muslims. Papering over caste-difference was constitutive of the seem-

ingly united Hindu demand for partitioning Bengal. Too long has the analytical

tyranny of communalism overshadowed the insights Mandal might have offered

on this troubled moment.

The Dalit–Muslim Alliance

The events of mid-August 1946, while typically understood to confirm caste Hin-

dus’ fears about Muslim domination and thus the justification behind the parti-

tion, have yet to be adequately situated in the context of the three years of Dalit

and Muslim political alliance that preceded them. Although these years are often

used to explain the growing apprehensions amongst the Hindu intelligentsia they

were also the only time in the history of Bengal, (including right up to the present

moment) that governmental power in Calcutta was wielded by representatives

of communities socio-economically most disadvantaged, namely, Dalits and

Muslims. In the political history of Bengal then, they constitute a short period

analytically untapped for their potentially radical vision. Mandal was at the cen-

tre of this novel political aspiration. He joined the previous Nazimuddin ministry

shortly before founding the Bengal branch of the Federation in 1943, and was

subsequently chosen to join the Suhrawardy cabinet, as Minister in charge of the

Judicial and Legislative department and Works and Buildings.3

Mandal grounded the solidarity between Dalits and Muslims, significantly, in

the perceived political–economic congruence of the two communities. In his view,

the spirit animating his alliance with the Muslim League was closely linked to the

socio-economic circumstances experienced by Dalits and Muslims alike. The

shared experience of the grinding poverty of rural Bengal was common to both

their communities.4 The following reification held force: the British and caste

Hindus were capital, Dalits and Muslims, labour.5 The vast majority of the Dalit

3 In a recent publication, Bandyopadhyay perhaps mistakenly dates the formation of the Bengal

Federation to 1945. Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity, p. 249.4 There were, no doubt, earlier instances of their common cause, like Namasudra and Muslim

indifference, even resistance, to the Swadeshi movement championed by leading Bengali nationalists

in the first decade of the century.5 The point is somewhat akin to that made by Partha Chatterjee in his essay ‘Agrarian Relations

and Communalism in Bengal’. Therein, he wrote, ‘As far as agrarian relations in eastern Bengal were



324 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


population was poor, including agriculturalists, sharecroppers and workers, and

had been deprived of formal education—as were the majority of Muslims. The

spirit motivating the political alliance in the domain of elite politics then was to

draw on this shared experience, crafting policies benefitting the vast majority of

the population of Bengal. Mandal was:

persuaded that my co-operation with the League and its Ministry would lead

to the undertaking on a wide scale of legislative and administrative measures

which, while promoting the mutual welfare of the vast bulk of Bengal’s popu-

lation, and undermining the foundations of vested interest and privilege, would

further the cause of communal peace and harmony.6

The events that transpired in August of 1946 then, as a result of the call for the

Day of Direct Action, must be placed in the context of the cooperation that de-

veloped between the Scheduled Castes Federation and the Muslim League over

the previous three years.7 Thus, the Star of India on 13 August 1946 featured a

poster calling for, ‘Representatives of minorities, suppressed and oppressed people

and anti-Fascist parties who have been unjustly bypassed by the British govern-

ment and who are ready to make common cause with the League in its fight for

the equal freedom of the Muslims, the Hindus, the Scheduled Castes, the Adibasis,

the tribals, the Christians other peoples are welcome at the meeting’.8

concerned, the available evidence seems to suggest that the crucial element which deflected peasant

agitations into anti-Hindus movement was not that most zamindars were Hindu and that the grievances

of the predominantly Muslim tenantry consequently took on anti-Hindu overtones, but the fact that

Muslim rent-receivers where they did exist, were considered part of the peasant community whereas

Hindu zamindars and talukdars were not. The evidence points, in fact, to structures of political authority

and ideology quite autonomous from the straightforward representation of the agrarian structure’.

Chatterjee, ‘Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935’, p. 11. Similarly, one

might argue that even if in class terms an elite had developed amongst caste-subalterns, they were

not considered sufficiently distinct from the communities they represented politically. There was no

seeming contradiction in the elite amongst Dalits making demands on behalf of the masses of their

economically less privileged communities.6 ‘Mr Mandal’s Letter of Resignation to Mr Liaquat Ali Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan,

9 October 1950’, in Indian Commission of Jurists, Recurrent Exodus of Minorities, p. 354.7 The Day of Direct Action was a Muslim League protest of the Cabinet Mission proposals. The

Mission was mandated with overseeing the transfer of power. ‘Muslims through the country were “to

suspend all business... and to observe the complete hartal”. Public meetings were to be held on that

day to explain the League’s rejection of the Cabinet Mission Plan and express the determination of

Indian Muslims to “vindicate” their honour, to end “British slavery” and fight the “contemplated

caste-Hindu domination’’’. Das, Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947, p. 165.8 Star of India, 13 August 1946. There is a longer history of solidarity between leaders of the Dalit

and Muslim communities that stands insufficiently treated. We seem, as it were, to be only able to

comprehend the League’s concerns for Dalits as cynical and instrumental.





Mandal and the Scheduled Castes Federation had responded in kind. Although

not too widely acknowledged, 15 August 1946 was also coincident with the

Federation’s ‘Anti-Poona Pact Day’.9 A day prior, the Secretary of the Calcutta

District Muslim League issued a statement urging Muslims to support the Fed-

eration’s protest.10 A procession of Federation and League activists paraded through

several streets in central Calcutta and converged at the designated Ochterlony

monument. Mandal presided over a meeting where the speakers condemned

the Cabinet Mission and the Congress for by passing the legitimate demands of

the Scheduled Castes and called upon the members to be prepared for any future

struggle under the leadership of Dr Ambedkar and Mr. Jinnah.11 He informed that

he had received a letter from the Secretary of the Muslim League supporting

the Scheduled Castes and added that they must take joint action to ‘force the

Congress and the Government to concede their demands’.12

It is of no small significance that a time so unavoidably associated with the

Day of Direct Action should also have been designated ‘Anti-Poona Pact Day’.

I will unravel the full import of its simultaneity with Hindu–Muslim violence in

due course. Suffice it to add that the Federation’s agitation in the latter half of

1946 was a nationwide affair, as was their association with the Muslim League.

In the wake of M.A. Jinnah’s nomination of Mandal to the interim government

several months later, P.N. Rajbhoj, General Secretary of the All India Scheduled

Castes Federation, ‘fully subscribed to the view expressed by Dr Ambedkar that

if the Scheduled Castes were not given separate representation, he would advise

his people to embrace Islam’, adding ‘that he had lost faith in Hindu religion’.13

A full appreciation of the political sentiments motivating the events of

mid-August 1946 requires particular attention to the contemporary activities of

the Federation in mofussil towns.14 On 15 August 1946, ‘about 400 persons of the

Scheduled Caste community of Gopalganj paraded through the main thorough-

fares of the town under the leadership of Kiran Chandra Biswas shouting, “Down

with British Imperialism”, “Down with the zamindari system”, and “We want

separate electorates”’. A meeting was subsequently held with Jagabandhu Biswas

in the chair. Speakers urged the audience to have faith in the leadership of

9 The Poona Pact was an agreement arrived at between representatives of the contemporaneously

termed depressed classes and caste Hindus in 1932, to have joint electorates with reserved seats for

the depressed classes, rather than separate electorates for depressed classes and caste Hindus as pro-

nounced by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s Communal Award earlier the same year.10 Star of India, 14 August 1946.11 Copy of S.B.D.N. dated 21 August 1946, File No. 191/46: Scheduled Castes Federation (Renamed

as Republican Party), Government of West Bengal, Office of Dy. Inspector General of Police,

Intelligence Branch, C.I.D., Kolkata, West Bengal State Archives (hereafter File No. 191/46, WBSA).12 Ibid.13 Morning News, 22 October 1946, File No. 191/46, WBSA.14 File No. 191/46, WBSA contains extensive primary material in this regard, from which the sub-

sequent paragraphs are drawn.



326 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


Dr Ambedkar and declared that if their demands were not considered by the

British Government and their interests overlooked when the Interim Government

was formed, they would be prepared to lay down their lives in the interests of

their community.

In Khulna, ‘about 50 Scheduled Caste students moved in procession through

Khulna town on 15th August shouting “Down with Poona Pact”, “No compro-

mise with the enemy” and other slogans’. The procession terminated at the Khulna

Municipal Park where a meeting was held with Ramdayal Das of Faridpur in

the chair. Speakers, including Manohar Dhali, Assistant Public Prosecutor, and

Secretary of the District Scheduled Castes’ Federation, and Jyotish Chandra

Mandal, a student, urged members of the Scheduled Caste community not to co-

operate with the Interim Government as their interests had been overlooked by

the Cabinet Mission. They appealed to the audience to unite under the flag of the

All India Scheduled Castes Federation, and to follow the instructions of Dr

Ambedkar. They declared that Mr Jogijiban Ram was not the chosen representa-

tive of the 50 million Scheduled Caste Hindus in the country. Resolutions were

passed condemning the proposals of the Cabinet Mission and demanding sepa-

rate electorates for the Scheduled Caste community.

On 31 August 1946, a ‘large procession organised by the Scheduled Castes

Federation and consisting of about 1,500 persons moved through the main

thorough-fares of Kanchrapara town shouting Dr. Ambedkar Zindabad and Benai

Gandhi Murdhabad’. In Midnapore, about 200 persons attended a meeting

organised by the local branch of the Scheduled Castes Federation on 17 August at

Kharagpur, with K.L. Maharaj in the chair. M.B. Patel, Secretary of the District

Scheduled Castes Federation, spoke on the growth and development of the

organisation and the difficulties which had been overcome by Dr Ambedkar in

the interests of the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes. He urged the audience to

enrol themselves as members of the Federation and to fight for their legitimate

rights.

About 300 persons, supporters of the Scheduled Castes Federation, paraded the

main thoroughfares of Jessore town on 15 August under the leadership of Amulya

Dhan Ray. This procession was followed by a meeting held at the B. Sarkar Hall,

under the chairmanship of Rasik Lal Biswas, who had defected several years

prior from the Congress. Speakers explained that the Scheduled Castes had been

duped by the caste Hindus. They criticised the proposals of the Cabinet Mission

and declared that the Ministers had not looked to the interests of the minorities.

They urged members of the Scheduled Castes to be ready to fight against the

Congress and the British in alliance with the Muslims, in order to wrest their legi-

timate demands. Members of the Muslim League who were present delivered

similar speeches.

All these events evidence, without a doubt, the presence of a political will and

consciousness entirely resistant to caste Hindu and Congress dominance in the





social and political life of Bengal. The Federation’s struggle for Dalit political

autonomy was at stake—the demand for recognition as a distinct political com-

munity to be represented by leaders selected by the Scheduled Caste communi-

ties alone.15 Mandal once described this as the chance to ‘stand up on our own

feet’ and not be dependent on either the Congress or the League.

Similar protests occurred elsewhere in India. Perhaps most significantly, they

suggest the considerable pool of support the Federation drew on in rural Bengal.

As an Intelligence Bureau Officer, one P.C.M. bluntly noted, ‘Scheduled Castes

Federation is the main organization of Scheduled Caste [sic]’.16 Similarly, the

Viceroy’s estimation in a letter to Pethick-Lawrence in late 1945, that the Federa-

tion ‘...is probably more representative of SCs opinion than any other’.17 Compar-

ing the spread of the Federation to the Congress’ own organisation, the Depressed

Classes League, one D.A. Brayden in a letter written in July 1945 to his superior,

the Deputy Director of Intelligence concluded, ‘On a reference to the different

districts in the Province, it is found that branches of the All India Scheduled Castes

Federation exist in nine districts while a branch of the All India Depressed Classes

League exists in only the subdivision of one district’.18 Here is one answer to the

vexed question of whether or not the Congress could justifiably claim to be the

true representative of the Dalits.

The 1946 Election

Indeed, this question had been posed with particular urgency only months prior to

Anti-Poona Pact Day during the 1946 elections. The fact that the Congress swept

the Scheduled Caste reserved seats by winning in 24 out of 30, a stunning re-

sponse to Ambedkar’s and Mandal’s claim that Congress did not represent their

communities, has been freighted with tremendous importance in recent historiog-

raphy: the ‘integration’ of the Scheduled Castes into mainstream nationalism19;

the ‘crisis’ of the Federation brought about by its own inadequacies20; or the

‘extraordinary success of propaganda about a Hindu ‘community’.21 Sekhar

15 It is not the case that that the Federation was solely concerned with questions of representation.

Much of their pamphlet literature, many of their resolutions, and their various leaders’ concerns

included questions of economic justice, zamindari abolition, workers’ and women’s rights, equitable

prices for produce, the institution of minimum wages, education, amongst other issues.16 Intelligence Bureau Notes, File No. 191/46, WBSA.17 Letter from the Viceroy to Lord Pethick-Lawrence, 9 October 1945, IOR/L/PO/10/22, London,

British Library.18 Letter from D.A. Brayden to G. Ahmed, 23 November 1945, File No. 191/46, WBSA.19 While it is true that Sekhar Bandyopadhyay has gradually complicated his argument about

Scheduled Caste integration, (most recently in the post-script to the second edition of his book Caste,

Protest and Identity), he also states in the new preface of the same edition that his main conclusions

have not changed.20 Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of Power’.21 Chatterji, Bengal Divided, p. 230.



328 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


Bandyopadhyay has interpreted these results to have been ‘an index, though still

in a very limited sense, of popular will as well’.22 Such assessments have been

called into question by Ramnarayan S. Rawat, who demonstrated the consider-

able weight to the Federation’s claim that the electoral arrangements under

the Poona Pact in force during the election were heavily tilted in favour of the

Congress’ candidates in the United Provinces.23 My own evidence corroborates

this stance.24 However, it is possible to push further, and more assiduously detail

the circumstances and consequences of this crucial election. It is only thus one

might appreciate the coincidence of Partition and the Federation’s defeat in

Bengal.

To begin with, other indices of Dalit political consciousness might well in-

clude the fact that of the 121 candidates who stood for the primary elections in

Bengal, only 29 were from the Congress. Or that of the 75 candidates who suc-

cessfully emerged from the primary elections to the General elections to contest

the 30 seats reserved for Scheduled Caste MLAs, only 25 were Congress, whereas

Independents (the largest category) numbered 37. In Jessore, a Federation candi-

date who won the second-highest number of votes in the primary elections, failed

to win either of the two seats reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates in the

general election—both went to the Congress. In Faridpur, both of the Federation’s

candidates who won the second and third highest number of votes in the primary

elections, failed to win either of the two reserved seats in the general election.

Such data raises serious questions about the circumstances under which 24 of

these 25 Congress candidates would emerge victorious in the general election,

and whether the results of the general election ought to be read as a reliable indi-

cation of Dalit political preferences.25 This being the case, the Congress’ heg-

emony over the Scheduled Castes of Bengal might further be qualified on account

of the fact that four of their leaders subsequently defected to Mandal’s Federation

after the elections, a development I will shortly address; or that the property and

education qualifications in force excluded the majority of the Dalit population

from franchise.

But there is more. Mandal was one of but two Federation candidates all over

India to have won in the election—even Ambedkar did not emerge victorious—

from amongst the 151 seats in the various provincial assemblies reserved for the

22 Bandyopadhyay, ‘From Alienation to Integration’, p. 373.23 Rawat, ‘Making Claims for Power’; Rawat, ‘Partition Politics and Acchut Identity’.24 Indeed, it seems clear that the British government anticipated this eventuality: See, ‘Confidential—

Brief for Dr Ambedkar’s Visit to the U.K. 1946’. IOR/L/PJ/10/50, London, British Library. That

said, neither did they concede that the Federation, as opposed to the Congress, represented the Dalits

on account of it having contested a limited number of seats.25 The corresponding figures for the totals of all provinces where primary elections were held are

as follows: of a total 505 candidates in the primary elections, 153 were Congress; of a total of 383

candidates sent to the general elections, 142 were Congress. See, Return Showing the Results of

Elections, New Delhi, 1948.





Scheduled Castes. It is undoubtedly true that the Congress’ sheer organisational

machinery and financial clout dwarfed the Federation’s, yet this only makes the

depth of their anti-Federation sentiment all the more instructive. Here is Mandal,

writing to the Governor of Bengal, about the 1946 election. An extensive quota-

tion is required:

Congressmen prevented Scheduled Caste voters from voting and attending

many polling stations by force and intimidation. Caste Hindu zaminders,

talukders, mahajans and school teachers threatened and stopped Scheduled

Caste voters from voting. Polling stations wrongly selected at corner and caste

Hindu areas causing inconvenience to Scheduled Caste voters and giving un-

due privilege to Congressmen. Promulgation of Section 144 was utilised by

educated and clever caste Hindu Congressmen to threaten illiterate Scheduled

Caste voters with fear of imprisonment for attending polling stations. Caste

Hindu presiding and polling officers hobnobbed with caste Hindu Congress-

men at all centres and encourage proxy and false personation by turning deaf

ear to and disregarding objections raised by many polling agents at many poll-

ing stations. More than 50% caste Hindu votes polled for the Congress candi-

date was proxy votes. At many polling centres, Caste Hindu Presiding and

Polling Officers snatched ballot papers from Scheduled Caste male and fe-

male voters in spite of protest and put in the Congress Candidate’s box. They

instructed and persuaded many voters to vote for the Congress Candidate. Elec-

tions were stopped before due time for which many voters could not cast their

votes. At some polling stations where the number of Scheduled Caste voters

was very large, the Caste Hindu Presiding Officers opened polling booths much

later than the due time and harassed my voters by making undue delay in issu-

ing ballot papers for which my voters had to wait till late at night and many of

them could not record their votes. Many Scheduled Caste voters were refused

ballot papers on frivolous grounds. Congressmen gave bribe to voters of dif-

ferent communities. In some cases, they delivered lectures showing pictures

in which they depicted me as a man of very immoral character and narrated

many false stories to prove me to be a man of vicious character which ad-

versely prejudiced my voters and materially affected my election. All these

facts and many others materially affected the whole election. Praying for kind

orders re-election.26

In the absence of a detailed voter lists, it is difficult to calculate the precise

effect of these astounding allegations Mandal levelled at the Congress on the

26 Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda, pp. 21–22. Masayuki Usuda has written that

‘there seems to have been a considerable degree of obstruction arising during the campaign’. Usuda,

‘Pushed towards the Partition’, p. 252.



330 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


election results if they are indeed true. What makes such activities all the more

telling are the stringent financial circumstances under which the Federation oper-

ated. Mandal, who along with significant support from the large pool of well-

wishers from amongst the Namasudra and wider Dalit community funded the

election campaigns, could only afford to put up eight candidates for election.27

Having to attend to campaigning for his own election and the constraints of time

and money, Mandal was unable to canvass for the remaining Federation candi-

dates in their own constituencies, leading, in his view, to their defeat. The Con-

gress, nevertheless, decided that Mandal had to be stopped in his tracks. As Mandal

recalled, ‘No matter how, Jogendranath had to be defeated’.28 The political ideol-

ogy he represented had become absolutely objectionable. It is the coincidence of

this imperative—‘had to be defeated’—with Partition’s politics that I wish to

underscore.

Mandal mentioned the following transgressions in connection with the 1946

election in the northern Bakarganj general constituency, one of the two elections

in which he was a candidate (and the same constituency from where he had ini-

tially been elected in 1936 amidst unprecedented circumstances): several gazet-

ted officers took it upon themselves to sign several thousand election ballots in

favour of the Congress candidate and added these to the totals at the election

office late at night, well past the time the polling was meant to have ended. Se-

cond, the Congress put up one Manoranjan Gupta, the only candidate who could

possibly carry the confidence of the various political outfits in northern Bakarganj

at the time despite his being imprisoned in Meerut jail in their bid to outdo Mandal.

He heard that thousands of voters had cast their ballots under false pretexts. Many

women voters had been allowed to cast ballots not only for themselves, but in lieu

of several amongst their female relatives as well. The presiding officers, not wish-

ing to instigate disaffection, did not prevent this from occurring.29

Mandal eventually won from a reserved seat in the south Bakarganj constitu-

ency, the very heartland of Namasudra political strength, containing as it did

Pirojpur and Patuakhali municipalities, areas from which the first stirrings of

Namasudra political activity emerged. Reaching back into this history, he cred-

ited the Dalit voters of that constituency for his own historic election in 1946;

historic, as will soon be elaborated, because of Mandal’s absolutely critical and

largely unacknowledged role in ensuring Ambedkar’s election to the constituent

27 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 123.28 Ibid., p. 126.29 Ibid., pp. 126–27. It is possible that these infringements were what Governor Burrows had in

mind when he conceded to Lord Pethick-Lawrence (in contrast to the thrust of his report, which

sought to convince his superior of the ‘remarkably little trouble’ in Bengal) that there were in fact

cases of Government Officer’s partiality towards a particular party. Letter from F.J. Burrows to Lord

Pethick-Lawrence, 5 April 1946.





assembly.30 He had been approached by several prominent Namasudra social

welfare workers of Pirojpur to seek election from south Bakarganj, and it was

through their and various students’ organisational efforts that Mandal’s campaign

succeeded. Indeed, his very candidacy emerged as a product of considerable

debate amongst the Namasudras of southern Barisal about which leader of sev-

eral, including the incumbent Upendranath Edbar, was the surest claimant to the

mantle of legislative representativeness.

Mandal contended against the smear campaign the Congress had launched

against him in northern Barisal. He had devoted his time to south Barisal, and in

his view the district Congress activists had made the most of his absence. The

basis of his candidacy was called into question given that his residence was in

north Barisal and an election petition was filed against him, which the Deputy

Magistrate rejected. On returning to north Barisal after an absence of several

days, Mandal recalled a student leader, one Surendranath Sikdar, bursting out in

tears and narrating the following to him:

Sir, taking advantage of your absence, Congress has spoiled the entire field

for you. The zamindars and talukdars of this area, who never set foot in the

prajas’ homes, are canvassing at the prajas’ homes, so much so that some are

staying the night in the cowsheds. Many caste-Hindu vakils, moktars and

doctors are wandering the Namasudra villages canvassing against you. The

caste-Hindu male and female students of the colleges are going round the homes

of Namasudra leaders and are spending the night in some of these homes.

Besides this, they are evenly distributing money. Please consider what you

will do now. After today and tonight the vote collection will begin.31

Despite the forethought the Congress appeared to have given to such adverse

circumstances, Mandal was elected from South Barisal, again, as one of the two

30 There is considerable misinformation about this election. Christophe Jaffrelot writes that in

1946, Ambedkar ‘had contested elections to join this body, not in Bombay, where Congress was the

ruling party, but in Bengal, where he was elected after winning the support of the Muslim League’.

See Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability, p. 100. Another instance of this, amongst others, is

Aditya Nigam’s mis-attribution of credit to the Muslim League in a recent blog posting: ‘Ambedkar

was elected to the Constituent Assembly as independent member from Bengal with Muslim League

support’. This emphatic assertion comes in the context of a rebuttal of Sudipta Kaviraj’s claim that

Ambedkar was critically reliant on Congress support and Nehru’s dominance inside the Congress.

A gathering impulse of hagiographic exaggeration of Ambedkar’s single-handed impact on Indian

society through its constitution does serious damage to an unexcited assessment of causes and con-

sequences in political history’. Nigam, ‘Reflections on Sudipta Kaviraj’s ‘Marxism in Translation’.

I hope the evidence I present will be of some relevance to the broader set of debates Nigam discusses.

I agree with Nigam’s impulse, yet would argue that Mandal and his movement in Bengal be credited

with Ambedkar’s election. The implications of this should be obvious.31 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 138.



332 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


sole successful Federation candidates all over India, catapulting him into an un-

expected seniority within the Federation itself.

Mandal’s election in 1946 was all the more exceptional if considered in

light of some of the contemporaneous correspondence between the Governor of

Bengal and the Viceroy that suggests the charge of bribery. In one of his reports

assessing the probable outcomes of the 1946 election, the Governor, Frederick

Burrows, wrote: ‘The Hindus will be a solid party of probably not less than 90

and not more than 96—according to the numbers of Scheduled Caste seats cap-

tured by the Congress. There are 30 Scheduled Caste seats of which probably at

least 24 will go to the Congress’.32 How would Burrows have known that there

would be such a dramatic swing in the number of Scheduled Caste seats that

Congress would clinch, and that too, with such precision? Especially given that

he wrote very early in the year, and the elections had not as yet occurred? A prior

report casts some light on the matter, the significance of which cannot be under-

estimated. Written on 5 November 1945, Burrows speculated to Wavell on the

outcome as follows:

It is rash to attempt to forecast the result of the elections, but the present out-

look is that, in the General Constituencies and Muslim Constituencies, the

Congress and Muslim League respectively will come out in considerably greater

strength than at present—and that, failing agreement between Muslim League

and Congress, we shall see a Muslim League Ministry with probably no Caste

Hindu support and probably little Scheduled Caste support (Caste Hindu money

is likely to influence the Scheduled Caste vote and elected members)...33

Consider this candid turn of phrase: Caste Hindu money is likely to influence

the Scheduled Caste vote and elected members. Burrows’ casual bracketing of

the monetary influence likely to be exerted in determining the outcome of the

1946 elections is of obvious relevance to the line of argument pursued herein. To

be sure, for the sceptic this may not constitute unimpeachable evidence per se,

but it strongly suggests that the electoral results were shaped by such pre-

meditated attempts by the Congress, of utterly dubious legality, to condition the

expression of Dalits’ political preferences.34

Consider as well, the All India Scheduled Castes Federation’s memorandum

to the Cabinet Mission which argued that the Federation’s routing in the elec-

tion was because the joint electorates in which seats have been reserved for the

Scheduled Castes have, ‘by reason of enormous disparity in the voting strength

of the Scheduled Castes and the Caste Hindus, become rotten boroughs from the

32 Governor’s Report, 7 January 1946.33 Governor’s Report, 5 November 1945.34 Is it, for instance, mere coincidence that a considerable number of the candidates who did even-

tually win with Congress support were relatively unknown figures in legislative politics?





point of view of the Scheduled Castes and pocket boroughs from the point of

view of the Caste Hindus, who have been able to put up Scheduled Caste candi-

dates, wishing to be their tools and get them elected in the joint electorates exclu-

sively with Caste Hindu votes’.35 The system of joint electorates had made a

‘mockery’ of the Scheduled Castes’ right to send their truest representatives to

the legislatures and as such, was a ‘fraud’ upon them. The memorandum included

an appendix analysing the relative strength of the caste Hindu voters and Sched-

uled Caste voters in constituencies in which seats were reserved for Scheduled

Castes in the Bombay provinces which showed ‘how the Scheduled Caste voters

are vastly outnumbered by the Caste Hindu voters and how impossible it is for

the Scheduled Caste voters to win the reserved seat by dint of their voting strength,

even if everyone of the Scheduled Caste voter were to come to poll. Exactly the

same sort of situation exist [sic] in other provinces’.36 The Federation’s point was

that by implicitly enabling Hindu majoritarianism, the electoral mechanisms

under the Poona Pact predominantly ensured the election of Scheduled Caste

candidates palatable to the caste Hindu electorate and were thus unreliable as a

measure of ascertaining the independent political preferences of Scheduled Castes

themselves.

Furthermore, while on the subject of representativeness, by the Congress’ own

admission not a single one of its Scheduled Caste candidates who won in the

1946 elections was included in the list of 72 representatives from Bengal to the

All India Congress Committee that year.37 Neither was a single one of them presi-

dent or secretary of any of the district Congress Committees in the entirety of

Bengal.38 Their conspicuous absence from any position of authority within the

Bengal Congress’ party structure thus offers a comment on the depth of their

integration.

Indeed, although there were serious differences between Dalit leaders in the

Congress and those in the Federation, representatives of the Depressed Classes

League (the Congress body) were also disappointed with the absence of their

representatives from the Cabinet Mission’s deliberations—the same context that

motivated the Scheduled Castes Federation’s support and joining in the Muslim

League’s protest. In ‘An Open Letter to the British Cabinet Mission and the Leaders

of the Country’ which Dharam Prakash, founder of the All India Depressed Classes

League sent to Surendra Mohan Ghosh, President of Provincial Congress Com-

mittee in Calcutta, Prakash opined that the parity granted to Hindus and Muslims

35 All India Scheduled Castes Federation, Memorandum to the Cabinet Mission, 5 April 1946,

p. 4.36 Ibid., p. 16. Indeed, the President of the Muslim League in Great Britain, Ali Muhammad Khan,

delineated a near identical interpretation of the 1946 elections as they concerned the Scheduled

Castes in his ‘Open Letter to the British Government’.37 Congress Handbook, 1946, pp. 4–6.38 Ibid., pp. 49–54.



334 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


came at the cost of Depressed Classes representation. Although he scolded the

Federation for ‘cursing their twice-born Hindu brethren in the hour of elections,

hurling abuses at them, picking up a quarrel with the Congress, burning down

Gandhiji caps, and throwing mud on revered Gandhiji’, his objections were nearly

identical to those expressed by Mandal and Ambedkar. Having noted how

Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan had agreed that the Cabinet

Mission’s ‘declaration is the best form of what the British Government could do

in the present circumstances’, Prakash concluded that ‘We also do not doubt their

honesty and good intentions’.

But, at the same time, we cannot conceal the unpleasant fact that, perhaps, the

missions have overlooked the claims of the Depressed Classes by an error of

their judgment and that that wrong can still be rectified by the amendment of

the proposals. We have sanguine hope and complete faith that the important

and serious problem of the Depressed Classes shall receive due consideration

at the hands of the British Cabinet Mission and leaders of the country, who,

will give evidence of their sense of justice, fair play, devotion to duty and

magnanimity.39

Such hopes, as we know, were misplaced—the Mission and the Congress were

only too eager to bypass the ‘problem of the Depressed Classes’.

Given the exceptional constraints recounted above, Mandal’s attribution of his

election to a sequence of events culminating in the existence of the constitutional

provisions for the Scheduled Castes of postcolonial India is all the more remark-

able. He reasoned about the very possibility of Ambedkar’s work in the Indian

Constitution as follows: ‘But Jogendranath’s achievement lay at the root of this,

and that Jogendranath was elected by the Namasudras of Pirojpur and Patuakhali

municipality. Thus they are the recipients of the gratitude of the Scheduled Castes

of all of Bharat’.40 I leave aside the question of whether Mandal’s assessment was

a reasonable one, especially given Congress’ supposed cooptation of Ambedkar

following on the transfer of power.41 It is undeniable however (irrespective of the

Congress’ subsequent change in attitude), that within the historical present Ambedkar

39 Dharam Prakash, ‘An Open Letter to the British Cabinet’.40 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 129.41 Certainly other members of the Federation concurred with this assessment, as suggested by

J.D. Manikpuri’s introduction of Mandal, as President-elect of the All India Scheduled Castes

Federation’s student conference held in Nagpur in late December, 1946. Following a listing of his

various honours: ‘... Over and above all, he has rendered greatest service to the Scheduled Castes

community in India by securing Dr. Ambedkar’s election to the Constituent Assembly in spite of

violent Congress opposition’. All India Scheduled Castes Students’ Federation, Report of the Second

Session, p. 5.





would not have been initially elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal

were it not for Mandal’s efforts amidst entirely adverse circumstances.

Ambedkar’s Election to the Constituent Assembly

Ambedkar travelled to Calcutta following the announcement of the elections to

the Constituent Assembly from the various provincial assemblies. He hoped to

gain the support of the European MLAs in Bengal as he saw no prospects of his

election from his base in Bombay, but upon hearing that they would not be par-

ticipating, came away disappointed. He complained to Mandal that there was no

chance of his being elected from any other province except Bengal and even that

did not come to fruition.42 It was then that Mandal took it upon himself to get

Ambedkar elected, even as the latter returned to Delhi utterly dejected.43

Mandal entered nomination papers in Ambedkar’s name, and commenced a

campaign to elicit support. Before long, the Congress launched its own efforts to

stop Ambedkar from being elected. Kiran Sankar Roy, one of the senior-most

leaders of the Bengal Congress, was allegedly requested to stay away from the

All-India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay that year, as ‘no matter how,

Dr. Ambedkar has to be defeated’.44 Various student activists of the Federation,

whom Mandal had directed to elicit support from amongst the MLAs whose votes

would count, undertook the work of his campaign. Both M.B. Mullick and

P.R. Thakur, major Dalit leaders in Bengal, had also decided to contest the elec-

tion, making Mandal’s efforts to get Ambedkar elected all the more challenging.

He personally secured the agreement of the independent Rajbangshi MLA from

Rangpur, Narendra Narayan Roy. The Congress apparently kept one of their MLAs

from Tangail, Gayanath Biswas, from meeting with Mandal evidently to stymie

the latter’s campaign. It is thus absolutely clear that even at this stage, the much

commented cooptation of Ambedkar by the Congress had not occurred, indeed,

quite the opposite; the Congress was quite intent to ensure his exclusion. Mandal

described the Congress’ and Hindu Mahasabha’s vituperation towards him for

trying to get Ambedkar elected at a Federation meeting in late 1946 as follows:

You have seen to what extent the Congress, Hindu Mahasabha, all the caste

Hindu organizations have tried to prevent the election of Dr. Ambedkar to the

Constituent Assembly from Bengal. They have circulated vile falsehoods and

much propaganda against us. I have had to listen to various types of heart-

rending abuse. I have been given thousands of rupees—this type of untruth

42 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 145.43 Ibid., pp. 144–53.44 Ibid., p. 146.



336 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


has been publicised. I have digested so much poison that everything from my

nails to the hair on my head ought to have turned blue.45

Although Gayanath Biswas was elected a Congressman, he was willing to

support Ambedkar and sent word of his intentions to Mandal from his concealed

location. The evening before the election at the Assembly, Mandal received a

telephone call from Khwaja Shahabuddin confirming the former’s prediction dur-

ing a conversation earlier in the day that once M.B. Mullick heard that Gayanath

Biswas and Dwarika Nath Baruri would vote for Ambedkar, he would do accord-

ingly. Mandal had also received the commitments of MLAs from Jessore and

Pabna, Bholanath Biswas and Haran Chandra Barman, respectively. A crowd of

Federation activists gathered outside the Assembly to receive news of the elec-

tions results on the day they were to be announced, and news of Ambedkar’s elec-

tion was celebrated at a victory procession taken out throughout Calcutta the

following day and subsequent festivities Mandal hosted at his own home.46

Shortly after the election, several of the MLAs Mandal had encouraged to vote

for Ambedkar defected from the Congress. A letter published in Jagaran (the

Federation mouthpiece founded by Mandal) on 12 October 1946, by Haran Chandra

Burman, Dwarkanath Baruri, Dr Bholanath Biswas and Gayanath Biswas, casts

some light on the matter. Titled ‘Why We Left the Congress’, the four MLAs

deemed it their ‘duty to give our reasons to our constituents in particular and the

public in general as to...’ their recent defection. Although they had joined Con-

gress, were elected with their support, and extended assurances about the legiti-

mate rights and interests of the Scheduled Castes, ‘as days passed by we became

doubtful about the Congress attitude towards the Scheduled Castes. Our hopes

and aspirations to serve our people were set at naught by a series of deeds and ex-

pressions of the Congress High Command’.47 First, the Congress had ‘done grave

injustice to the Scheduled Castes of all provinces’ ‘in depriving them of their due

shares in the Constituent Assembly’. Scheduled Castes were disproportionately

45 ‘Bangiya Pradesik Taphasili Jati Phedareshaner Caturthha Barshik Adhibeshan’, 31 December

1946, in Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda, p. 121.46 In a congratulatory letter to Ambedkar, Mandal described the procession as follows: ‘... about

half a mile in length consisting of several thousands of people with slogans expressing our sympathy

to the Satyagrahis and other slogans such as “Dr. Ambedkar Jindabad”, “Scheduled Castes Federation

Jindabad”, “Down with Cabinet Mission”, “Boycott Congress”, “Benia Gandhi Murdabad”, so on

and so forth. No police help was requisitioned. The procession paraded along many main roads and

streets covering a distance of about 10 miles. It was an unprecedented affair in Calcutta. All went on

smoothly’. Letter from J.N. Mandal to B.R. Ambedkar, 25 July 1946. Ambedkar wrote to Mandal

inquiring into the costs he had incurred over the course of the campaign—a sum of four and a half

thousand rupees—to which the latter replied that they could discuss it in due course in person. When

they met in Delhi several days later, Mandal declined any reimbursement, claiming whatever expenses

had been occurred were for the wider political community, and not Ambedkar himself.47 Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath o Babasaheb Ambedkar, pp. 86–88; see also Jagaran,

12 October 1946.





under-represented. Second, they had appointed but one seat to 60 million Sched-

uled Castes, while the same was awarded to 3 million Sikhs, or a few million

Indian Christians, or a few million Parsees. Third, Jagjivan Ram’s selection to the

Interim Government ‘reflects another act of gross injustice and insincerity to the

Scheduled Castes inasmuch as the said Mr. Jagjivan Ram is more a puppet in

the hands of the Congress than a representative of the Scheduled Castes’. Fourth,

by excluding Dr. Ambedkar, ‘the fittest representative of the Scheduled Castes’

from the Interim Government, the Congress had ‘forfeited the confidence’ of

60 million Scheduled Castes. Fifth, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s (Congress

President) request to the Viceroy to ‘refuse recognition to the Scheduled Castes’

the ‘sole object’ of which ‘is to do away with the separate political entity of the

Scheduled Castes in the national life of India’.48 Last but not least, the Congress

Government’s treatment of the Scheduled Caste satyagrahis in Poona and Nagpur,

and the threat ‘to suppress with iron hand the Satyagraha and any other movement

of the Scheduled Castes’ amply demonstrates the real motive of the Congress and

how the Scheduled Castes will fair under Congress rule.49 The four MLAs thus

concluded that the ‘Congress will never help the Scheduled Castes to secure

their political rights and interests which can only be achieved by the united

efforts of all the Scheduled Castes people under the banner of the All-India

Scheduled Castes Federation and leadership of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. ... If they fail

to do so, the Scheduled Castes are doomed forever.50

This surge in support for Ambedkar that Mandal orchestrated became the basis

for Ambedkar’s own appeal to the British government that they reconsider their

refusal of recognition to the Federation. In a letter protesting Attlee’s stance

that, ‘I am afraid that I cannot accept the view that the Cabinet Mission and the

Viceroy were unjust to the Scheduled Castes...’,51 Ambedkar replied as follows:

‘That the Mission was grossly misinformed is proved by my election to the Con-

stituent Assembly from Bengal. The Cabinet Mission stated in the House of Com-

mons that my influence was confined to Bombay and C.P. How is it then that

I was elected from Bengal?’52 Ambedkar then impressed upon Attlee, ‘three facts’

regarding his election to the Assembly:

One is that I did not merely scrape through but I came at the top of the poll

beating even Mr. Sarat Chandra Bose, the topmost Bengalee leader of the

48 Ibid. Indeed, Mandal also emphasised this point as well as the brutal repression of the Federation’s

satyagraha in Poona and Nagpur in his address to the Bengal Scheduled Castes Federation in Calcutta

on 31 December 1946.49 Ibid.50 Ibid.51 Letter from Mr Attlee to Dr B.R. Ambedkar, in Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17,

Part 2, p. 250.52 Protest Letter of Dr Ambedkar to Mr Attlee, in Ibid., pp. 253–54.



338 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


Congress party. Secondly, I am in no way connected by communal ties with

the Scheduled Castes of Bengal. They are of different castes to which I don’t

belong. In fact the people of my caste do not exist in Bengal at all and yet the

Bengalee Scheduled Castes supported me, so strongly that I was able to come

first. Thirdly, though the Scheduled Castes in Bengal had been returned on the

Congress ticket, yet they broke the rule of their party not to vote for anybody

except for Congressmen and voted for me. Does this prove that I have no fol-

lowing in Bengal?53

On account of his election from Bengal, Ambedkar challenged Attlee, ‘if the

Cabinet Mission are honest in their conclusion, they ought to revise their errone-

ous opinion which they have expressed in the House of Commons and ... give

proper recognition to the Federation’.54

The Federation, as is well known, did not eventually receive due recognition,

but the basis for not doing so was fundamentally conditioned by everything the

Congress had done to effectively silence the organisation: from insisting on the

joint-electorate terms of the Poona Pact which worked to the Federation’s disad-

vantage, to undertaking the electoral misdemeanours Mandal alleged, to actively

working to bias the electorate against him and the Federation. To be sure, if one is

to believe Mandal, both his own election to the Bengal Assembly, and Ambedkar’s

consequent election to the Constituent Assembly was of tremendous import to

the course of post-colonial constitutionality, but the denial of recognition to the

Federation signified the exclusion of their political agenda from the terms of de-

bate under which power was being transferred. The implications of this exclusion

become clearer when considered alongside the communal violence synonymous

with Partition.

Mandal and the Calcutta Riots

Scholars will be familiar, from the work of Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Bidyut

Chakrabarty and Partha Chatterjee, with the anger and vitriol directed at Mandal

in the days after the Calcutta riots.55 ‘Jogen-Ali Mulla’ became a favourite slight,

as certain segments of public opinion, including other prominent Dalit leaders,

turned violently against him, demanding his resignation from the Suhrawardy

53 Ibid.54 Ibid. Earlier in the same letter, Ambedkar protested the exclusion of the Scheduled Castes from

the consultations about the future of British India and argued, ‘...that the majority of the Scheduled

Castes are with the Congress is an atrocious statement and has no foundation in truth’. Ambedkar

laid out his critique of the Cabinet Mission in a memorandum that he circulated prior to departure to

London to meet with Attlee and Churchill in October 1946. See, ‘The Cabinet Mission and the

Untouchables’, in Ibid., pp. 263–65.55 Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest, and Identity; Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Culture and Hegemony;

Chakrabarty, The Partition of Bengal and Assam; Chatterjee, ‘The Second Partition of Bengal’.





ministry. Mandal was perceived as but a stooge of the Muslim League, a view

that misjudged his emphasis on Dalit political autonomy. Bejoy Krishna Sarkar, a

Congress MLA, posed his criticisms most pointedly. Sarkar asked, given that

Mandal associated with the League’s direct action, what had he done to secure

‘the lives and property of the Scheduled Castes of the different parts of the pro-

vince’ and what rehabilitation measures his cabinet had proposed for families

destroyed by their relatives’ deaths. ‘Lastly may I ask whether he is partially

responsible for the so many lost lives of the Scheduled Castes in that riot?56

We know a great deal of how Mandal was pilloried by other Dalit and caste

Hindu MLAs. As the leading Dalit minister in the Muslim League ministry, the

full force of Hindu Bengal’s fury and indignation was directed towards him. In

contrast, we know relatively little about how Mandal himself was reacting and

responding to the maelstrom of violence for which he was held accountable. What

follows, therefore, is a close reading of his perspective a little less than a month

after the worst of the Calcutta riots had subsided. As I hope will be demonstrated,

he adopted an entirely exceptional view on the communal violence for which he

was allegedly culpable.57

Mandal first aired his views on the Calcutta riots in an editorial published in

Jagaran.58 He complained that those caste Hindu papers which published various

pieces chastising him, did not offer him the opportunity to respond to public cen-

sure. Indeed, he had even sent various statements to their offices to no avail: they

refused to publish them. This unwillingness, he reasoned, was an outcome of the

fact that his policies and opinions no longer served the caste Hindus.

Responding to critics trying to tarnish his reputation, he alleged that the ma-

jority of Dalits placed no value in their accusations, given that they were pre-

dominantly Congress or Hindu Mahasabha salaried workers trying their level

best to fancy themselves ministers. He expressed his belief that opinion would

not be swayed by the injudiciousness and thoughtlessness of such men. He pre-

sumably had in mind, Congress opponents like Radhanath Das and Pramath Ranjan

Thakur.

Mandal proceeded to clarify the misinformation disseminated amongst the Dalit

public about his organisation. Reprising the context for the Muslim League’s call-

ing for the Day of Direct Action—namely, their exclusion from the proceedings

of the Cabinet Mission thus far—he specifically emphasised the ongoing nation-

wide Poona Satyagraha, and the various protests in East Bengal that have been

56 The Nationalist, 14 September 1946.57 It is singular that Mandal did not frontally address the Calcutta riots in his autobiography. A

lacuna of such major proportions will likely be read as an admission of guilt. Alternatively, given

what he does focus on in the manuscript, one might also interpret this absence as reflecting a funda-

mentally different set of priorities that could not but reject the overwhelming communal significance

of the prolonged event that was Partition.58 Jagaran, ‘Phedareshan Sabhapatir Bibriti’.



340 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


mentioned earlier on in this chapter. It was in this context and this context alone,

that the Scheduled Castes Federation’s participation with the Muslim League in

protest ought to have acquired meaning. Commenting specifically on the Calcutta

riots, he made the bald and categorical assertion that even though these riots had

communal overtones, this was not at all a communal war: ‘Even if these riots ap-

pear communal, this is not a communal war’—this was simply a political battle

between the Congress and the Muslim League.

Mandal characterised the opportunistic claim that the vast majority of people

involved in the Calcutta riots were Scheduled Castes as but a ploy to pit them

against the Muslims. Dalits, he contended, had nothing to gain from enmity with

the Muslims, who in economic and political terms, stood on essentially the same

footing as they did. This was of particular significance, again, in the context of

their exclusion from the Cabinet Mission, and the unwillingness to recognise the

Dalits as a minority community.

Mandal’s contentions thus ran in direct contrast to the predominant thrust of

Hindu public opinion. Birat Chandra Mandal, President of the Depressed Classes

Association, for instance, averred in the context of the soon-to-be-nominated in-

terim government, that ‘A large number of Scheduled Castes residing in Calcutta

bustees have been killed. At Belliaghata in Calcutta, the house of Babu Satish

Chandra Bairagi, a follower of Dr. Ambedkar has been burnt to ashes’.59 The im-

plication being that even Ambedkarites were not spared the wrath of Muslim

rioters. Dalit participation in the Calcutta riots, or their victimhood in the same,

was thus harnessed towards conflicting perceptions on extant political contexts.

For some, communal violence effected a certain sublation of caste-difference.

The most notable aspect of Mandal’s statement, however, was his declaration

of a policy of neutrality with regard to the violence in Calcutta, and his urging

Dalits to adopt the same. He hoped that both Hindu and Muslim leaders would

refrain from trying to engage them against the other community, and that Dalits

themselves would not respond to such exhortations. In closing, he made a plea

to their leadership, activists, students and general populace, to bear in mind the

future political and economic welfare of their community, and remain aloof from

the battles being waged between other political parties.

Despite the overall tenor of Mandal’s statement, he could not but have been

painfully aware that Dalits had in fact been key participants and victims in the

violence that brought the city to its knees. Nevertheless, keeping his own political

and ideological commitments in mind, he bracketed the full implications of his

community being made into fodder for stakes of which he was hardly in control.

As his arguments might suggest, he would have been only too cognisant of the

irony that Dalit participation and suffering in the riots bolstered the moral capital

of Congress’ claim for Partition.

59 Hindustan Standard, 27 August 1946.





The Interim Government

Even as news of the Calcutta riots triggered similar, if not more appallingly

brutal waves of mass violence elsewhere in Bengal and other Indian provinces, in

October 1946, Mandal was nominated by the Muslim League to join the Interim

Government as the Law Minister. This selection is generally viewed as the League’s

cynical attempt to retaliate against the Congress for including Muslims amongst

their own list of nominated representatives. If one were to adopt a somewhat

more sympathetic reading of the matter however, and not interpret all such ges-

tures as though they were insincere, one would have to contend with the very

genuine sense of gratitude that Dalits all over the country felt towards Jinnah and

the League for this choice. Expressions of such were on display in processions

and demonstrations taken out all over the country—from Agra, Fatehgarh, to

Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay and Nagpur.60 Jinnah addressed a gathering of ‘about

3,000 Scheduled Caste men who went to the League leader’s house on 16 October

to thank him for including their representative in the new central government’

that, ‘It is easy to make promises and then forget them, but I believe in action, and

I assure you that I shall never fail to do for you whatever lies in my power...’. He

added: ‘I am your friend, and I shall always be your friend. I did my very best for

the Scheduled Castes at the Round Table Conference, and this matter is on actual

record’.61 Note, by contrast, that Mandal recalled how when his entry to the In-

terim Government was being celebrated by the Federation, the caste Hindus of

Bengal responded with ‘limitless malice and adverse criticism’. Newspapers that

ostentatiously displayed their ‘progressiveness’ published pieces containing opin-

ions about Mandal that ‘as a measure of caste-hatred put the violent black malice

of the whites of South Africa and the negro animosity of one class of whites in

America to shame’.62

At a press interview on 16 October, Mandal felt ‘that an injustice was done to

the Scheduled Castes by the British Cabinet Mission, and that Congress has been

undone by this act of the Muslim League. I am grateful to Mr. Jinnah, for his

offering a seat to the Scheduled Castes Federation out of the Muslim League’s

quota...’. He would represent the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation which

‘commands the support of 90 per cent of the Scheduled Castes in India. Congress

captured a large number of seats because of the existence of the Poona Pact,

which provided joint electorates for the Scheduled Castes. That was no indication

that the Scheduled Castes supported Congress’.63

60 File No. 191/46, WBSA.61 Information Department, India Office (Telegram A.3563 from the Press Information Bureau,

New Delhi, 18 October 1946).62 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 167.63 Information Department, India Office, (Telegram A.3561 from the Press Information Bureau,

New Delhi, 17 October 1946).



342 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


At another press interview the following day, he elaborated his stand:

Although I have the cause of the Scheduled Castes deepest at heart, my first

duty must be to the Muslim League which has taken up our cause. Secondly,

I will work for the betterment of the whole country without considering caste,

creed or province. Thirdly, I will work for the betterment of the position of the

Scheduled Castes. Our cause is nearest my heart, and I shall work continually

to eradicate the many injustices under which we now suffer. Particularly

I shall work to change the unfairness of the position of the Scheduled Castes in

regard to the primary and general elections.64

Nehru and Gandhi were hardly pleased with Mandal’s nomination. Nehru con-

fided to Wavell: ‘I think I owe it to you to tell you privately and personally that

I regret deeply the choice the Muslim League has made. That choice itself indi-

cates a desire to have conflict rather that to work in cooperation. This is espe-

cially evident in their choice of a member of the Scheduled Classes’.65 And Gandhi,

for his part, held forth at one of his prayer meetings that, ‘he could not sense any

generosity’ in Mandal’s nomination, ‘especially when he read what was happen-

ing in Eastern Bengal. A man like himself ought to be glad, they might say, that

another seat had been given to a Harijan. But he would be deceiving himself and

Mr. Jinnah if he said so’.66

That Nehru and Gandhi hardly looked kindly upon, far from welcoming

Mandal’s nomination, speaks to their willingness to accommodate his concerns.

Moreover, the view of Mandal as a Muslim League representative on his nomina-

tion seriously flattens the distinctiveness of his political stance. At a Federation

meeting in Calcutta in May 1947 for instance, he countered claims that he was

urging conversion to Islam by asking that if this were in fact the case, why was he

(along with the Federation) demanding separate electorates and an independent

political existence.67

In his statements excerpted above, Mandal once again gestured at the problem

of how the electoral arrangements agreed to under the Poona Pact could act as an

64 Information Department, India Office, (Telegram A.3563 from the Press Information Bureau,

New Delhi, 18 October 1946. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay omits from his use of this source, everything

from ‘Our cause is nearest my heart...’ onwards, as well as ‘Although I have the cause of the Scheduled

Castes deepest at heart...’ This enables the, in my view, unsubstantiated argument that Mandal ‘seemed

to be more keen on pleasing his patron than serving his community’. Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of

Power’, p. 932. Other such puzzling assertions include that Mandal was allegedly at one point

Ambedkar’s ‘solitary supporter in Bengal’. See Bandyopadhyay, ‘Partition and the Ruptures’,

p. 461.65 Letter from J. Nehru to A. Wavell, 15 October 1946.66 Information Department, India Office, (Telegram A.3561 from the Press Information Bureau,

New Delhi, 17 October 1946).67 Jagaran, 17 May 1947.





appropriate mechanism for accurately gauging Scheduled Caste political opin-

ion, and by extension, the question of whether the Congress could claim the right

to represent the Dalits. This question of representativeness, importantly, had a

bearing on who exactly demanded Partition in Bengal. For instance, the follow-

ing categorical assertion by Sarat Chandra Bose, (one of the few Congressmen

who held against the Partition of Bengal) in a letter to none other than Vallabhbhai

Patel, might temper the assumption that the vast majority of Dalits had fallen in

line with the majority Hindu opinion in favour of Partition: ‘...having been in

close touch with public opinion both in West and East Bengal I can say that it

is not a fact that Bengali Hindus unanimously demand partition. As far as East

Bengal is concerned, there is not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming ma-

jority of Hindus are opposed to partition’.68 East Bengal, it will be recalled, was

the heartland of Dalit political mobilisation.

During much of his tenure as Minister of Law in the Interim Government,

Mandal was preoccupied in shoring up the Federation’s various activities across

the country. Perhaps this is why he does not feature too prominently in the Trans-

fer of Power documents. There are, however, some traces: Wavell wrote rather

disparagingly to King George VI on 24 February 1947, that Mandal was ‘usually

travelling around the country to attend Scheduled Caste political meetings; when

he does come to the Cabinet he is silent or silly’.69 What might one take Mandal’s

silence or silliness, or his absences to signify? His engagements with Mountbatten

and his vantage on the transfer of power cast some light on the matter.

Mandal recalled that the cabinet held weekly meetings interspersed with bi-

weekly meetings which the Governor-General held with individual ministers.70

Mountbatten was deputed to replace Wavell upon the latter’s failure to reach an

agreement between the Congress and the League. On his first meeting with Mandal,

he spent an hour over the designated half-hour, asking him about the history of the

Scheduled Castes, their political, social and economic situation, and Dr Ambedkar.

Mandal remembers Mountbatten having listened to him with great intent. At a

later meeting, Mountbatten apparently asked Mandal, ‘Mr. Mandal, whenever

you come, you only say various things about the interests of the Scheduled Castes,

but you don’t say much about other matters—what is the reason for this?’ He

answered: ‘The reason is that no other ministers say anything to you about this

matter, they speak about the general conditions of the country. Therefore I have

to speak about these oppressed and persecuted peoples. When Pandit Nehru comes

68 Begum, The Last Decades of Undivided Bengal, p. 176. Bose’s letter does not, of course, con-

clusively demonstrate the proposition.69 Mansergh and Lumby, no. 460, 24 February 1947, The Transfer of Power, 1942–7, p. 801. A

‘personal comment’ about Mandal by Wavell is omitted from the official version.70 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 202, PCSJM.



344 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


and speaks to you of them, then I will no longer have to do so’. At this, Mountbatten

allegedly began to laugh.71

At several points in his autobiography, Mandal registered a profound unease

and sense of alienation from the proceedings of the Interim Government, espe-

cially with regard to the Partition. He grounded this sentiment in the notion which

had gained force upon the 1946 election that the Scheduled Castes Federation did

not really represent the Dalits on account of their poor electoral performance,

and that the fundamental problematic of the Partition thus turned on reconciling

the Congress and the League. But the outcome of this election was determined by

the Poona Pact, and as Mandal claimed in his address at the fourth annual con-

ference of the Bengal Scheduled Castes Federation, 72 per cent of the Scheduled

Caste voters in the primary election had voted for non-Congress candidates whereas

the Congress had only claimed the remaining 28.72 The British had thereby ac-

cepted, to his mind, the faulty notion that Partition was primarily about solving

the communal problem. Mandal thought that he would certainly be consulted on

account of his seniority, and decided to venture his opinion, irrespective of whether

he was asked:

But the sad thing is that a day before the date of the next interview, the private

secretary of the Governor-General telephoned Jogendranath’s personal assis-

tant and informed him that ‘If H.M. Law has no official business to talk to

H.E. then H.E. does not expect him tomorrow’. This meant to in exceedingly

polite language forbid Jogendranath from going to meet the Governor-

General. Upon hearing this from the personal assistant, there was no limit to

Jogendranath’s sadness and distress. He realised that since Congress had agreed

to divide Bharat, the Governor-General no longer did feel the necessity to

meet with him or know his opinion. The chief reason for Jogendranath’s mor-

tification being that on the logic of dividing India an extremely important matter

would be brought about and despite being a minister in the central govern-

ment, not even his opinion was asked.73

Later on, Mandal linked this sense of exclusion to the 1946 elections. The

British, in his view, had erroneously looked on the election outcome as furnish-

ing conclusive evidence that all Muslims supported the League, and all those

remaining supported the Congress.

This is why the British government and the Governor-General got the impres-

sion that if the founding of the future governance of India was agreed upon by

71 Ibid., pp. 203–204.72 ‘Bangiya Pradesik Taphasili Jati Phedareshaner Caturthha Barshik Adhibeshan’, 31 December

1946, in Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda, p. 121.73 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, 204–205, PCSJM.





these two parties no other disturbance would remain. Thus British Govern-

ment and the Viceroy began to discuss all kinds of matters regarding the found-

ing of India’s governance with the leaders of these two groups. The demand

for an independent political existence for the Scheduled Castes in the national

life of Bharat that Dr Ambedkar had made on behalf of the Scheduled Castes

Federation no longer survived. The autonomous existence of the Scheduled

Castes in the national life of Bharat was annihilated right here. Thus in the

founding of Indian governance or whether India would remain undivided

or partitioned, in related discussions, British government or the Viceroy did

not feel the necessity of speaking with Dr Ambedkar. For the very same rea-

son, the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten did not perceive the need to talk with

Jogendranath.74

Here Mandal signals the sheer magnitude of the effect of the elections on Gov-

ernment’s thinking, and thus the inevitable occlusion of the Federation’s move-

ment for political autonomy within the given terms of reference, thereby offering

an entirely new vantage on the matter: that in conjunction from the very outset,

the joint-electorate, Congress’ and Mahasabha’s anti-Federation ideology and

practice, and the idea that the transfer of power was essentially about solving the

communal problem, fundamentally determined their defeat. Telling perhaps, that

on the day of Mandal’s departure for Karachi as first speaker of the Government

of Pakistan, 5 August 1947, he parted ways with Mountbatten after the latter

allegedly conceded, ‘What is done is done. We could not help’.75

The Possibilities and Limits of the Dalit–Muslim Alliance

In distinct contrast to his assessment of the Calcutta riots—which he characterised

as a political battle between the Congress and the League—after touring East

Bengal in October 1946 to urge calm upon various localities, Mandal asserted

that it was ‘fantastic to impute political motives behind the recent outbreak, and

link political parties with the disturbances. It was an uprising of violent elements

pure and simple, and nothing but sheer lawlessness and the activities of the goonda

elements are responsible. No political parties are involved’.76 This was also partly

the message conveyed in a joint communiqué co-signed by Khwaja Nazimuddin,

Fazlur Rahman, Choudhuri Moazzem Hossain, Abul Hashim, Jogendranath

Mandal, Rasik Lal Biswas, Bholanath Biswas and Dwarika Nath Baruri. In a plea

to Muslims and Dalits all over Bengal, they reasoned that their political alliance

had no value if their communities were to forsake living together peaceably and

74 Ibid., pp. 231–32.75 Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, caturthha khanda, p. 21.76 Information Department, India Office (Telegram A.3602 from the Press Information Bureau)

New Delhi, 25 October 1946.



346 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


lose sight of their conjoined futures. They warned that ‘Our enemies can instigate

Muslims and Scheduled Castes into riots and mayhem’, and thus especially hoped

that they would desist from such incitement and keep their two communities’

mutual welfare in mind.77

Various articles and editorials in Jagaran published after the East Bengal riots

emphasised a similar message. Namely, that neither the Muslims nor the Dalits

stood to gain from them—that the only parties that stood to benefit from this vio-

lence were the caste Hindu ones, which could exploit the slippage between their

dual identification as both Scheduled Caste and Hindu, and thus marshal such

animosity, as in Noakhali and Calcutta, towards the alleged irreconcilability of

Hindus and Muslims. Speculations were rife, in these articles, that the Congress

was doing its best to exclude the Dalits from their proportionate share in the

future governance of independent India, even as they sought to speak on their

behalf, and even as their hired goons proceeded to pit Dalits and Muslims against

one another. Twenty officers of the local Muslim League and Scheduled Castes

Federation had circulated ‘An Appeal to the Jhenidah Sub-divisional Muslim

League and Scheduled Castes Federation’, which drawing similar conclusions as

articles in Jagaran, advocated the formation of a ‘joint committee in every police

station, union and villages with the representatives of the Muslims and Scheduled

Caste people for the maintenance of peace and order and for the good of both

communities’.78 Federation and League student leaders maintained correspon-

dence to similar effect.79

77 Jagaran, ‘Musolman o Tapashili Sampradayer Prati’. This leaflet was distributed as far afield as

Jessore and Faridpur, and cropped up in the Intelligence Reports of the time. In the Faridpur weekly

confidential report ending 9 November 1946, next to the last sentence of the report which ran as

follows: ‘It is, therefore, not unlikely that their enemies will try to bring a disruption among them; so

it warns member of both communities—the Muslim and the Scheduled Caste (sic)—to refrain from

killing each other’, the District Superintendent wrote, ‘But not Caste Hindus!!—a significant

omission—has the leaflet come to notice elsewhere?’ File No. 717D/46 (Muslim League), Serial

No. 270, Kolkata, West Bengal State Archives. Interestingly, the Hindusthan published a piece in

response to the Federation and League’s pamphlet entitled ‘Satan’s Policy of Division’ that landed

the paper in legal trouble because the article in question, in the local government’s view, ‘tended to

promote feelings of enmity between the Hindus and Muslims’. The article was written in condemnation

of an entire series of events to which Mandal was central, and which culminated in the Federation

and League’s issuing their joint-statement. As N.C. Chatterjee, one of the supreme leaders of the

Partition agitation and legal counsel for Hindusthan described, the article had been written to ‘combat

the two-fold propaganda—(a) to detach the Scheduled Castes from the main body of the Hindu com-

munity; and (b) to point out the mischievous character of the attempt to drive a wedge amongst the

Hindu community’. Amrita Bazar Patrika, ‘Security Demand on “Hindusthan”’.78 File No. 717D/46, WBSA.79 File No. 191/46, WBSA. The entire outlook on communal violence in this archive is utterly

alien to and irreconcilable with the story of Partition and concomitant riots that Indian nationalist

historiography tells.





A pamphlet circulating in Dacca district in mid-January, 1947, drafted by the

Muslim League Revolutionary Workers Association in Calcutta presented an analy-

sis of the ongoing violence which illuminates how they looked upon the alliance

between Dalits and Muslims. As such, the pamphlet recapitulated in detail the

reasons for their solidarity in their roles as the primary producers in agrarian rela-

tions, overlapping with Mandal’s own rationalisations for the forging of the same,

though with obvious and crucial differences. Titled ‘Anti-Muslim feelings of the

caste-Hindus and Calcutta riots’, the writer chastised the ‘meanness displayed by

caste-Hindus during the Calcutta carnage’ and ‘chalked out an aggressive pro-

gram of complete boycott of the caste-Hindus by joint union of the Muslims and

the Scheduled Castes with a view to bring the caste-Hindus down to their own

level’.80 Significantly, the association laid responsibility for the breach of peace

during the Calcutta riots with Congress activists, emphasising how Jinnah had

insisted that the protests on the Day of Direct Action be peaceful. Exulting in

the Muslim response to the ‘open attack and brutal torture perpetrated by the

Congress’ the pamphlet reprised the broader context of freedom from British rule,

and the attendant question of how a future state might be democratically gov-

erned by representatives of its communities. ‘What is the significance of the free-

dom of a country? It is the freedom of the poor and down-trodden masses and

their peace and prosperity. Who are these masses in India [sic]. Muslims and a

few other low caste Hindus (Namasudras). So in this triangular fight (British,

Hindu, Muslim)—we really deserve to be freed. A revolution cannot be complete

leaving aside the poor downtrodden people’.

The pamphlet subsequently charted a programme for the Muslim League

Revolutionary Workers Association. Proposing the formation of Union Defence

Committees composed solely of Muslims and Scheduled Castes workers of each

ward and union, these committees would control their jurisdiction according to

the following directions. Primarily, ‘they will keep no connection with the caste

Hindus. Business, revenue, land tenure, discussion and even association with the

caste Hindus are prohibited. They may only be called at any time of necessity to

notify them regarding orders of the committee’. The committees would arrange

for the market and other places of trade and commerce to be under the joint con-

trol of Muslims and Dalits.

In this projected utopia, caste Hindus would not receive more than a quarter

share of the produce of the barga land which they would have to harvest and

carry themselves. ‘Poor men are not their servants’. If they [the caste Hindu land-

owner] were to take the land away, the cultivator occupier would cultivate it

forcibly.

Rice, foodstuff and other commodities of trade are under our control. They

must not be sold to the caste Hindus. We shall starve them to death. There will

80 ‘Anti-Muslim feelings of the caste-Hindus and Calcutta Riots’, File No. 717D/46, WBSA.



348 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


be no necessity for killing them. Rice must not be sold to the caste Hindus

even if they pay `5 for a seer. If we carry on for two months only in this way

you will find that they have come down to the same status with us. Then they

will not accost a Muslim or a Namasudra as ‘thou’ (in contempt). Then the

country will be free. If any prominent man secretly visits the caste Hindus

with a view to getting advantage for himself, on receipt of information, that

man must be boycotted from the society and he must be insulted everywhere.81

As an instantiation of the desired policy changes, the pamphlet seized on that

emblem of Bengali labour—jute—proceeding to discuss regulation of the jute

industry given that ‘the jute-growers of Bengal are mainly Muslims and

Namasudras’. It described the present situation where Hindu Marwaris cheated

the cultivators by purchasing jute at `10 or 12 per maund (1 maund is approxi-

mately 37.32 kg) and selling the same at `100, ‘thereby sucking the blood of the

cultivators’. The cultivator had no choice but to sell his jute for bare sustenance.

To transform these extortionate circumstances, the Muslim and Namasudra lead-

ers of Bengal would soon be organising a jute-buying syndicate for the whole of

Bengal which would enable the cultivators to sell their jute at more favourable

rates. ‘You must be careful’, the pamphlet warned, as in order to forestall such

developments, ‘Hindu Marwaris are carrying on secret conspiracy with the

Kayestha [sic], Brahmin and other rich merchant leaders with a view to bring

about complete ruin on the jute cultivators of Bengal’. The imagined audience of

the pamphlet, ‘must on no account sell your jute to the Marwaris or caste-Hindu

jute traders who are cheating you’. Within two months, it was promised, they

would be able to sell their produce at `40 per maund.

Reminding its readers of the Muslim majority in Bengal, the pamphlet predi-

cated the loss of caste Hindu power on Namasudras combining with Muslims.

The caste Hindus would have to obey the ‘direction and administration of the

poor class Muslims and Namasudras whom they hated and oppressed so long’.

Continuing in this vein, it sketched the details of such government, proposing the

development of various organisational features for a network of committees—

including the raising and distribution of funds consistent with Islamic ideals. Since

‘caste Hindus have collected all the money due to the labour of the Muslims and

the Namasudras’ they would be bound to contribute the major portion of finances

for the defence of the country.

We shall not kick the caste Hindus out of Bengal. We shall rule over them. So

long they have thrived sucking our blood. We shall now turn the table. It will

be sufficient to tell the Namasudras and other Scheduled Caste brethren that

so long the caste Hindus who were under the British Government hated and

81 Ibid.





tortured them more than us. Now let them understand what shall be their pos-

ition if a free caste Hindu empire is established and join hands with us. While

still there is time, for their own future welfare and self-defence according to

the direction of Quiade-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah the protector of the Sched-

uled Caste people and Dr Ambedkar. At this moment, being cornered the caste

Hindus will hold out many promises but immediately after they achieve their

object they will play the same game which they have done all through. It is

necessary to make them understand this.82

Bringing the reader up to speed with the cataclysmic riots following in East

Bengal and Bihar (and how Kripalani and Gandhi were glad about the retalia-

tion), the pamphlet writer urged, ‘Please note it specially, that the incitement to

riots in Calcutta and Bihar for killing the Muslims have all come from our Bengalee

educated Congressite caste Hindus’.

This truly astonishing pamphlet indicates how the violence preceding Parti-

tion in Bengal was apprehended as gathering in its energies dynamics of struggle

that far exceeded the structural coordinates of violence between Hindus and

Muslims so ingrained in the historical understanding of this event. Especially

significant is the attribution of the most unprecedented acts of communal vio-

lence in Bengal not to Hindus as a blanket category, but to the caste Hindus in the

Congress. No doubt the articulated programme did not come to pass, but it is

unmistakable that for the writer of this pamphlet, Partition was simply not about

the resolution of relations between imperial rulers and those they ruled, or

Hindus and Muslims, but fundamentally held out the possibility of transforming

the social and economic relations between caste Hindus on the one hand, and

Dalits and Muslims on the other. Such incongruence needs to be thought along-

side narratives that see in Partition the replacement of caste by religion as the

defining criteria of community boundaries.83

The elite of the Muslim League in Bengal comprehended the problem of

partition somewhat differently. In a letter to Lord Ismay, Chief of Staff to the

Viceroy, of 27 April 1947, H.S. Suhrawardy, Chief of the Bengal Muslim League

expressed his dissatisfaction with the ‘notional scheme of ascertaining the views

of the people of those areas who in accordance with your determination, you

believe, desire partition...’ Suhrawardy elaborated:

82 Ibid.83 Indeed, Jagaran contains a plethora of letters, poems, and essays, drawn from the everyday life

of Partition-era Bengal that stand considerably at odds with the view of this historical moment as

consumed by irreconcilable and unavoidable conflict between unmarked Hindus and Muslims. It is

clear that many of these correspondents were deeply sceptical of the Congress’ and Mahasabha’s at-

tempts at constructing what they perceived to be a spurious Hindu communal unity, and did not look

upon Muslims as selfish and domineering oppressors.



350 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


In the first place, how do you know which are the areas which want partition?

The statement of organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha which collapsed

during the last elections are of no value. This is an attempt on their part to cap-

ture Hindu sentiment. The Congress has thrown out a qualified support but it

will be unable to demarcate the area because it is well known that the Hindus

of Eastern or North Bengal do not desire partition. Not knowing the wishes of

the people how can you determine the area in which you are to ascertain the

wishes of the people...?84

For Suhrawardy, ascertaining the ‘wishes of the people’ referred primarily, to

the Scheduled Castes. He felt

absolutely certain... that the present representatives of the Legislatures of the

Hindu community do not represent the interests of the Scheduled Castes. So, if

you proceed on the basis of the present composition of the Legislature, you are

knowingly proceeding on a wrong basis which you cannot justify merely be-

cause of the difficulties of ascertaining the wishes of the people within the

time that you have set for yourself.85

Does Suhrawardy’s letter corroborate the claim that the Congress did not rep-

resent Dalit interests? Or was this sheer opportunism on his part? What are we

to make of his accusation that Ismay was ‘knowingly’ proceeding on the basis of

compromised veracity? Importantly, his critique of the notional scheme was

grounded not in an argument about his own political constituency—Muslim

Bengal and India—but his sense that Hindus in the Bengal Legislature did not

represent Dalits. Indeed, as a proponent of the United Bengal Proposal along

with Sarat Chandra Bose, Suhrawardy was more closely aligned with Mandal’s

own predilections. In a letter to Liaquat Ali Khan, 19 May 1947, Suhrawardy thus

wrote:

I think I was unduly pessimistic regarding Jogen Mandal. I met him yesterday

with his group of workers and had a long discussion with him and have arrived

at certain scheme of work. He has had a very successful meeting in Burdwan.

It was composed of about 3000 Scheduled Castes.... His propaganda is making

considerable headway in Khulna... and it is hoped that we shall soon get the

Scheduled Castes on our side there [i.e. 24 Parganas] and some headway in

Burdwan Division, but obviously the difficulties are considerable and the time

is short.86

84 Suhrawardy Papers, 27 April 1947, in Rashid (ed.), Inside Bengal Politics, 1936–1947, p. 76.85 Ibid.86 Ibid., p. 80.





Yet Suhrawardy acknowledged the limitations of the various propaganda mar-

shalled in service of arguments against partition. In a subsequent letter to Liaquat

Ali Khan, two days later, on 21 May 1947, he submitted:

The propaganda of the Scheduled Castes in our favour will be that they will

be divided, hence there should not be a partition. This is weak against the

propaganda of the Hindus, viz. That ‘we Hindus of these areas, both Caste and

Scheduled Caste, will govern together and have a great Hindu province which

will be linked to the Hindu provinces of the rest of India and which will domi-

nate over the Muslims, a province which will be rich in resources and which

we shall not surrender’.87

The ‘propaganda of the Hindus’ ultimately triumphed. On 20 June 1947 the

Legislative Assembly of Bengal met to vote on the partitioning of the province.

At the preliminary joint meeting (comprising MLAs of both East and West

Bengal), 126 to 90 voted that the province, if remaining united, should join

Pakistan. At a separate West Bengal Legislative Assembly meeting the same day,

58 to 21 voted in favour of Partition and joining India. The separate East Bengal

Legislative Assembly meeting resulted in 106 to 35 votes against Partition, and

107 to 34 votes in favour of union with Pakistan, if Partition eventuated.88 A

closer look at the representative preferences of the legislators in Bengal as a whole,

discounting notional schemes, by totalling the votes from east and west, shows

that 127 as against 93 legislators voted against Partition. Partition proceeded against

the will of the majority of MLAs in united Bengal, and along with the sanction

of the majorities in a divided one. It should be no surprise if the majority of Dalit

MLAs voted for Partition—they, after all, were elected Congressmen in the 1946

elections.89

Mandal and the Anti-partition Agitation

During his term as Law Minister in the Interim Government and increasingly

once the certainty of Partition drew near, Mandal toured the country extensively,

addressing various meetings on the details of their constitutional and political

demands, the need for political unity, and about how disastrously Partition would

impact their communities. He travelled from Delhi to Bombay to Calcutta, Nagpur,

Karimganj, Ferozabad, Pune, in addition to countless smaller district towns all

over Bengal. He laid great emphasis in his autobiography on the effusiveness of

87 Ibid., pp. 83–84.88 Mansergh and Lumby, The Transfer of power 1942–7, no. 369, 27 June 1947, p. 681. Also see

Begum, The Last Decades of Undivided Bengal, pp. 176–77.89 Although I have not been able to consult the actual voting record on Partition as yet, on the basis

of the evidence available to me (which may very well be inaccurate), it is not likely that any more

than 23 of the 30 Scheduled Caste MLAs voted for the partition of Bengal.



352 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


his various receptions all over the country, seemingly having invested great mean-

ing in the rituals of neta-darshan.

Indeed, there was a near inexplicable undercurrent of optimism that Mandal

and some of his colleagues expressed given that the Federation was confronted

with a situation where Congress had for all intents and purposes manufactured

their redundancy. The veteran leader Amulyadhan Ray lectured at the annual

Bengal Federation conference in late 1946, that despite the mistake of having

voted for the Congress during the elections and thus having compromised the

rights their communities had gained over the past 15 years, these had received a

new lease of life on account of Ambedkar’s entry to the Constituent Assembly

from Bengal, the Federations’ satyagraha, Mandal’s position in the Interim Gov-

ernment, and Ambedkar’s invitation to London to plead their cause.90 Mandal had

struck a similar note at the same meeting. Upon Ambedkar’s election, he said,

‘the Scheduled Castes of Bharat have no more fear’.91 This curiously upbeat as-

sessment changed with the fact of Partition.

In May 1947 Mandal and the Bengal Federation launched a campaign through-

out the province opposing the demand for the Partition of Bengal, eliciting the

wrath and opposition of the Bengal Congress and Mahasabha, the principal vota-

ries of the divide.92 He reasoned that Partition would not solve the problem of

communalism in Bengal, moreover, that the ‘present scheme for the Partition of

Bengal is only to crush the Scheduled Castes and get all power in the hands of the

Caste Hindus’.93 At a meeting in Harinarainpur in 24 parganas he claimed that

Partition would result in a situation where ‘the Scheduled Castes of Eastern

Bengal will be at the mercy of the majority community, and the Scheduled Castes

of Western Bengal will be subject to the perpetual slavery of the Caste Hindus’.94

The caste Hindus of East Bengal, ‘mostly rich and influential’, ‘could easily move

to West Bengal’ whereas,

...the Scheduled Castes were very poor and they lived by cultivation of land,

catching fish in rivers in East Bengal....By no means, could the poor helpless

people belonging to the Scheduled Castes be rehabilitated in West Bengal. A

united Bengal, therefore, was a necessity in the interest of the Scheduled Castes

people of the province.95

90 ‘Bangiya Pradesik Taphasili Jati Phedareshaner Caturtha Barshik Adhibeshan’, 31 December

1946, in Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda, p. 118.91 Ibid., p. 122.92 It is certainly one of the greatest of ironies that Mandal became the lynchpin for the Partition of

Bengal once the sordid effects of the decision began to materialise.93 Morning News, ‘Partition to Crush Scheduled’.94 The Nationalist, ‘Partition of Bengal Injurious’.95 Free Press, 18 May 1947, in Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda (1979),

pp. 27–28.





Partition would ‘decay the growing political consciousness’ and ‘ruthlessly

crush the solidarity of the Scheduled Castes of Bengal’, distributed as they were

throughout the province.96 Articles and editorials in Jagaran thus opined that Par-

tition was essentially about the consolidation of caste Hindu power, motivated by

the fear of losing their already battered hegemony.97 The writer of one of these

asked, if the supporters of Partition amongst the Bengal Congress were as demo-

cratic as they claimed to be, why were they unwilling to conceive of living equally

in a province with both Muslims and Dalits? For the Federation, Partition would

destroy the very possibility of Dalit political autonomy.

Throughout May 1947, Mandal and the Federation held meetings in localities

as far afield as 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Haora, Bardhaman, Birbhum, Bankura,

Nadia, Khulna, Jessore, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Darjeeling and Calcutta. The claim

that these meetings were ‘isolated demands’ and ‘attracted little attention’ likely

underestimates their scope and significance.98 Various articles in Jagaran indi-

cated that the caste Hindu press allegedly deliberately ignored these rallies in an

effort to minimise their import, published misinformation about them, inflated

the numbers of Dalits present at meetings they reported on which supported the

Partition of Bengal, and in some cases local Congress committees attempted to

muzzle gatherings resolving against Partition.99 The very archival materials which

form the evidentiary bases for historical argument were thus shaped by these

prejudices. Finally, it might also be considered that several senior Dalit leaders—

some of whom had been prominent leaders prior to provincial autonomy in 1937—

like Amulyadhan Ray, Anukul Chandra Das, Kshetra Nath Sinha, Shyama Prasad

Burman, Advaita Kumar Majhi and Rasik Lal Biswas, as well as what seems to

have been a fairly wide party network for having existed for a mere three years,

96 The Nationalist, 16 May 1947, in Ibid., pp. 40–41.97 Jagaran, 5 April 1947. Also see Ajad, ‘Taphasili Jatike Bibhranta’ .98 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay writes in response to Mandal’s claim that Dalits opposed Partition:

‘The reality of the situation, however, indicated a different scenario, as Mandal’s anti-Partition rallies

attracted little attention. A meeting organised by him in early May 1947 in the 24-Parganas was

attended by not more than 50 people, while as a counterpoint to this, a meeting organised by the

Congress-supported Bengal Provincial Depressed Classes League on 27 May 1947 was attended by

about 2500 people, “including a thousand members of the Depressed Classes”’. Bandyopadhyay,

Caste, Culture and Hegemony, p. 229. By contrast, Jagaran reported that a meeting in Kholapota

village in 24 parganas (potentially the same one to which Bandyopadhyay referred) was attended by

individuals of various communities amongst the Scheduled Castes amounting to ‘nearly 5000’ people.

Jagaran, ‘24 Pargana Jelar Kholapota’.99 See the entire issue of Jagaran for 17 May 1947, especially articles titled ‘Barnahindu Kagaj

Anandabajar Patrikar Taphasili Bibhrantamulak Apapracar’ and ‘Jalpaigurir Sabhar Prakrta Bibaran’.

Also, a report by an attendee to one of the meetings in Calcutta which was allegedly largely attended

by Dalits found that the majority of the audience was composed of caste Hindus and non-Bengali

Dalits who had been paid for their presence at the gathering. Ajad, ‘Tathakatithha Taphasili Sabhar

Swarup’.



354 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


supported the Federation’s meetings against Partition. Especially given the hos-

tile political atmosphere of the time, it is unlikely these meetings could have

taken place without a fair degree of local support and conferral of legitimacy.

On 4 May 1947, Mandal addressed a meeting in Darjeeling attended by ap-

proximately 6,000–7,000, including local leaders and other notables amongst the

Rajbanshi community.100 On 6 May, at a meeting of 10,000–12,000 attendees

presided over by the ex-president of the Kshatriya Samiti Girijakanta Sinha in

Jalpaiguri, he elucidated the drawbacks of the proposed Partition. Some caste

Hindu goondas of the Congress tried to disrupt and stop the meeting, but their

attempt was foiled by the gathered audience.101 On 7 May 1947 in Dinajpur, he

addressed a gathering of 7,000–8,000 presided over by the ex-MLA Shyamaprasad

Barman. Like in Jalpaiguri, some Congressmen tried to forestall the proceedings,

with no effect. At a meeting called by the Congress in Poradanga village in Jessore

on the 8 May 1947 about the prospective partition, a crowd of predominantly

Federationist Namasudras silenced several of the Congressmen who were present

at the gathering, and resolved in favour of a united Bengal.102 On 9 and 10 May

1947, Mandal addressed meetings in 24 Parganas.103 On 16 May 1947, he addressed

a meeting in Calcutta104; on 17 May 1947, one in Bardhaman.105 D.N. Barori pre-

sided over a meeting at the Kalachora in Hooghly district which was attended by

‘over six thousand people representing such scheduled caste communities as Santal,

Bagdi, Kaora, Tyer, Bowri, Hadi, Dom, Muchi, Jelia, Kaibarta, etc.’106 Towards

late May, Mandal addressed a meeting attended by about 10,000 people at Rangpur

in Khulna, resolving against Partition.107 Two other such meetings in Khulna were

attended by 7,000–8,000 people.108 Several days later Mandal noted, ‘The Presi-

dent of the All-Bengal Mahishya Samity has already expressed that the Mahishyas

are against the division of the province. Besides, the President of Tippera-Noakhali

Hindu People’s Party has issued a statement opposing Partition. One section of

Baruijibis, who are Caste Hindus, have also opposed partition’.109 Shyama Prasad

Barman, ex-MLA and President of the North Bengal Rajbanshi Kshatriya Samity

took his colleague Prem Hari Barman to task for initially standing against, and

100 Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda (1979), p. 22.101 Ibid., p. 23.102 Jagaran, ‘Jashohar Jela Kangresi Netader Shocaniya Parajay’.103 Jagaran, ‘24 Pargana Jelar Kholapota’.104 The Statesman, ‘Partition Opposed By Scheduled Castes’.105 Jagaran, ‘Bardhhaman, Birbhum o Hugli Jelar Tapshil Jatir Caturthha Barshik Sammelan,

Banga-bhanger Biruddhe Prastab Grhita’.106 Bengal Provincial Scheduled Castes’ Federation, ‘Press Message, 12 May 1947’.107 The Statesman, ‘Bengal Partition Move Opposed’.108 Jagaran, ‘Jibaner Binimayeo Banga-bhanga Rodh Kariba’.109 The Statesman, ‘Mandal Opposes Bengal Partition Plan’. Indeed, Mandal’s private papers contain

a statement dated 16 May 1947 issued by G.S. Nath, President of the Tippera–Noakhali Hindu People’s

Party to this effect.





subsequently supporting the Partition demand. The former submitted that widely

attended meetings were held in Rangpur on 27 April, then Dinajpur on 7 May,

opposing partition.110 There thus existed substantial, even if far from unanimous,

opposition to partition amongst the Scheduled Castes of Bengal.111

The Federation’s advocacy for a united Bengal and their claim that the Dalits

of Bengal did not desire Partition was furiously countered by many other promi-

nent Dalit leaders. Prem Hari Burman, ex-minister of Bengal, declared that his

‘community as a whole’ was in favour of partitioning the province. He repudiated

Jinnah’s stance that the partition of Bengal was predominantly a caste Hindu de-

mand, and asserted, ‘Except for Mr. J.N. Mandal, the League nominee in the

Interim Government, and a few satellites of his, no other independent Scheduled

Caste Leader in any part of Bengal has raised a voice of protest against the move

for partition of Bengal’.112 Similarly, Manoranjan Das, secretary of the Noakhali

Scheduled Castes Association averred, ‘150,000 Scheduled Caste Hindus of

Noakhali are definitely and solidly in favour of partition of Bengal into two sep-

arate Hindu and Muslim areas’.113 Mr. P.R. Thakur—Depressed Classes Leader of

Bengal and a member of the Constituent Assembly ‘strongly repudiated the con-

tention of Mr. J.N. Mandal... that the Scheduled Castes of Bengal were opposed

to the Bengal Partition movement’.114 At a conference of the Bengal Depressed

Classes League on 27 May 1947, a resolution condemned Mandal and his ‘base-

less propaganda’ that the Scheduled Castes of Bengal did not support the Partition

demand.115 Birat Chandra Mandal, the President of the All-India Depressed Classes

Association, had been ‘studying the movement’ of ‘Hon’ble Mr. Jogendranath

Mandal’ since his appointment in the Interim Government, and, ‘On the very day

he declared himself as a representative of the Muslim League, he has forfeited his

right to speak on behalf of the Scheduled Castes’.116 Finally, the Viceroy reported

that ‘he had been “attacked” at the Garden Party on 3 May by two Scheduled

Caste representatives to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal, who had warned

him against Mr. Mandal who they thought had been misleading him’. They in-

formed him that the Scheduled Castes ‘on no account wanted separation from the

Caste Hindus’ and were determined not to be left under the ‘brutal suppression

and domination’ of the Muslims. They firmly demanded partition and claimed to

represent the view of the Scheduled Castes in Bengal.117

110 Morning News, ‘Bengal Partition Opposed’.111 Jagaran reported at least three more meetings in 24 Parganas, Bardhhaman and Mymensingh

opposing Partition in late May and early June, attended by audiences of over a thousand. Jagaran,

7 June 1947.112 Pioneer, 30 May 1947, in Mandal, Mahapran Jogendranath, dvitiya khanda (1979), p. 56.113 Ibid.114 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 28 April 1947.115 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29 May 1947.116 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 30 May 1947.117 Mansergh and Lumby, The Transfer of Power, 1942–7, no. 314, 5 May 1947, pp. 617–18.



356 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


Clearly, amongst the currently elected Dalit leadership, Mandal was the object

of critique. For them, the security of living in a Hindu majority province within

India far outweighed the uncertainties of being part of the Hindu minority in a

Muslim majority independent and undivided Bengal or Pakistan. Yet the major-

ity of those who criticised him had been elected under the terms of the 1946

elections amenable, as I have shown above, to scrutiny for their arguably dubious

efficacy in calling forth the leaders most representative of political opinion amongst

Dalits in Bengal.

Indeed, what these various claims and counter-claims about partition suggest

is that opinion was far more unresolved and uncertain than we might believe.118

Before being converted to the Partition cause for instance, P.R. Thakur presided

over the All-Bengal Nationalist Depressed Classes Association meeting in Calcutta

on 14 March 1947 that ‘seriously requests the Hindu leaders to cry a halt to the

movement and earnestly urges upon the people of Bengal to work for the estab-

lishment of peoples’ Government in united Bengal’. In addition, ‘an Association

of the Hindu leaders of Bengal who are against partition should be immediately

formed to devise ways and means of how to retain solidarity of Bengal in the

interests of all people living in the province, irrespective of community, caste or

creed.119

At a subsequent meeting Thakur presided over in Faridpur, those gathered

made it ‘definitely clear that the proposed partition of Bengal for the purpose

would, in no circumstances, be allowed to take place unless and until definite

measures for the total repatriation of the poor class Hindus, specially the sched-

uled caste people, from the Muslim majority areas of East Bengal were taken by

the Hindu leaders’.120 Bejoy Krishna Sarkar, elected a Congressman, held a meet-

ing in Calcutta, which despite resolving in favour of partition nevertheless strongly

urged that ‘Caste Hindu leaders should declare that they will not go back on their

words of honour, so often given to the depressed classes that they should at once

start whole-scale reform of the Hindu social structure on the basis of equality’.121

Evidently, even for Dalit leaders who had joined the Congress, questions remained

about whether Partition was in their communities’ best interests and whether Par-

tition would bring about the kind of social equality between caste Hindus and

Dalits which they themselves desired.

Indeed, there are likely good reasons to re-examine whether Dalits in Bengal

as a whole unambiguously desired Partition. Perhaps most indicative of the

British government’s willingness to forego sustained consideration of Mandal’s

118 There is also Partha Chatterjee’s point that it is ‘historically inaccurate’ to suggest that the

decision to partition Bengal ‘actually involved the participation of masses of people’. Chatterjee,

‘The Second Partition of Bengal’, p. 37.119 Amrita Bazar Patrika, ‘Depressed Classes Association Against Movement’.120 Amrita Bazar Patrika, ‘Repatriation Before Partition’.121 Amrita Bazar Patrika, ‘Scheduled Castes Demand Partition of Bengal’.





claims against Partition (despite claiming to do so), consider the following ex-

cerpts from the Minutes of the Meeting of the Viceroy with the Indian Leaders on

2 June 1947—the day before the decision was formally announced. Mandal had

raised the necessity of a Scheduled Caste referendum which was rebuffed.122 The

reasons provided included:

During the disturbances in Calcutta the Scheduled Castes had contributed to

their full share of the casualties on the Hindu side. It would be impossible to

hold a referendum of the Scheduled Castes in Calcutta at short notice because

there was no separated Scheduled Castes Electoral Roll; because, on the Hindu

Roll, there were many cases where caste was not entered or needed checking;

because the police and military were so stretched that an elaborate referendum

in Calcutta itself was out of the question; and because the principle, if applied

in Calcutta, would have to be applied elsewhere—which would result in end-

less complications.123

The necessity of ascertaining Dalit opinion was thus dismissed on expediency.

Furthermore, the most recent population statistics derived from the 1941 census,

the same census which recorded a decline in the Scheduled Caste population on

account of the Congress’ and Hindu Mahasabha’s attempts to both encourage the

withholding of Dalits’ caste identifications as well as enumerators’ intentional

omission of the same. In early May, Mandal therefore challenged Syamaprasad

Mukherjee, one of the key protagonists of Partition, on his claim that the Mahasabha

had not made considerable headway amongst Dalits in their campaign to per-

suade Hindus to not mention their caste at all, and be recorded simply as Hindus

during the 1941 census.124 The Scheduled Caste population in the province had

artificially ‘declined’ between the 1931 and 1941 censuses, whereas in Mandal’s

opinion it should have grown by more than 20 per cent.125 Such calculations were

in part the basis for Mandal’s conjecture that, ‘Even if cent per cent of the Caste

Hindus of West Bengal support partition, it cannot obviously be taken as the ver-

dict of a majority’.126 This was why he called for a referendum. Mandal also

pointed out that since the election to the provincial assemblies had occurred on

the basis of existing territorial boundaries it would be ‘only just and fair’ that

Government ‘should proceed on the basis of existing facts’.127 Instead, the no-

tional scheme eventually adopted in Mountbatten’s plan which divided the

122 Mansergh and Lumby, The Transfer of Power, 1942–7, no. 23, 2 June 1947, pp. 39–42.123 Ibid., pp. 39–42.124 The Statesman, ‘Hindu Population of Bengal: Dr. Mookerjee’s Statement Refuted by

Mr. Mandal’.125 Ibid.126 The Statesman, ‘Partition Will Not Solve Problem: Majority of Non-Muslims Against Proposal’.127 Ibid.



358 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


legislative assembly into Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority districts implic-

itly gave precedence to the Congress’ and Mahasabha’s demand for Partition.

Like Mandal, H.S. Suhrawardy raised objections about Calcutta to Sir Eric

Mieville, Principal Secretary to H.E. the Viceroy, in a letter dated 19 May 1947.

He argued that ‘Calcutta ought not to go to the non-Muslim area’ as it had been

‘built up by the British’ and was a ‘cosmopolitan city’. Further, Scheduled Castes

in West Bengal had held meetings at which they declared against partition. ‘A

propaganda is going on amongst them and they are being rapidly converted. It

only needs a little more time and the whole atmosphere will change. But if you

take a notional vote of the representatives who have been elected to the legisla-

ture, then of course Bengal is doomed’. Suhrawardy continued, ‘If you really

want to know what people are thinking about it, it is necessary to have a general

referendum. It would not be fair to partition Bengal because some leaders of the

Hindu Mahasabha are continuously shouting for it and some newspapers have

taken up the cry’.128

Ali Muhammad Khan, President of the Muslim League Branch of Great

Britain, in his lengthy submission to the British Government on the Partition de-

cision therefore argued that the ‘tragedy of the situation’ was that not only were

Dalits being treated as Hindus, ‘but their number is being utilised to make up

Hindu majority in the Provisional Plan of partition of India between Hindustan

and Pakistan, and to help their Caste Hindu oppressors to establish their own

hegemony on the Scheduled Castes together with others’. Khan felt that their

opinion had to be established, particularly in areas where they formed a consider-

able part of the population. ‘Taking all points into consideration, it seems emi-

nently just and fair that a plebiscite of the Scheduled Castes people should be

taken in all the areas where their decision might change the majority decision of

the areas concerned, to join either Hindustan or Pakistan’. He granted that if the

plebiscite revealed that they chose Partition along with the caste Hindus, the sta-

tus quo would remain unchanged. ‘But on this ground there is no justification to

refuse the Scheduled Castes the exercise of their birthright of freedom of expres-

sion of their opinion on such a vital issue as the partition of their home-land’.129

Such appeals fell on deaf ears.

Indeed, there exists other evidence as well that suggests Government moved

on the decision to Partition Bengal without specifically ascertaining public opin-

ion as is clear from the ‘Explanatory Note’ on the Partition of Bengal from a

Secret and Confidential Governor’s Secretariat File. The note conceded:

There being no time now specifically to consult public opinion on the basis

of adult franchise, we must make a partition which will conform to what is

128 Rashid, Inside Bengal Politics, p. 78.129 IOR/L/PJ/7/1246, London, British Library.





believed on present evidence to be the wish of the majority community in any

particular area, as evidenced at the General Election of 1945–6 and by the cur-

rent ‘partition’ agitation. Except for some uncertainty as to the effect of the

Scheduled Caste vote—(the various ‘scheduled castes’ aggregated some nine

millions of Bengal’s twenty-five million Hindus in the 1941 census, apart from

a large number of Hindus who did not specify their caste (or lack of it))—the

Hindus at the General Election may be said to have voted for Congress ideals

and against Pakistan.130

The Government thus proceeded on the unverified assumption (despite the

acknowledged uncertainty) that since Dalits voted for Congress in the 1946 elec-

tions, they now demanded division. Gandhi’s coercion of Ambedkar in 1932 thus

cast its long shadow on the Partition of Bengal.

Besides the task of assessing the depth of pro-Partition sentiment amongst the

Dalits, there is the equally crucial issue of its results—a matter to which I will but

gesture. Was freedom from Muslim domination worth the consequences of the

divide for their communities? During his agitation against Partition, Mandal de-

lineated these potential effects in great detail. Writing towards the end of his life,

came this tragic vindication: ‘But the country’s leaders and people did not listen

to him. The various things he had said about the consequences of the Partition of

Bengal have all come true’.131 Amongst these he included the life conditions of

Dalits in East Bengal; the failure to rehabilitate Dalit refugees in West Bengal or

elsewhere; he felt that the widely proclaimed Dandakaranya plan was ultimately

a ‘farce’; and finally, communal riots continued in both Bengals. The very anta-

gonisms for which Bengal was divided had not been resolved and moreover, many

others were created as a result thereof. ‘Only destiny knows when all these prob-

lems will be settled’.132

Conclusion

The defeat of Mandal and the Federation’s project for Dalit political autonomy

coincided with the ‘united Hindu demand’ for the Partition of Bengal. As I have

shown, this was not simply the outcome of the Federation’s inadequacies, but

equally the result of sustained efforts by the Congress to ensure that an indepen-

dent political movement amongst Dalits found no fertile terrain. Partition, while

undoubtedly turning on the axis of communalism, was also meaningful in its his-

torical present as a moment entailing the loss of possibilities for the political

mediation of caste inequality in Bengal.

130 ‘Explanatory note’ titled ‘Partition of Bengal’ in Secret, Confidential Governor’s Secretariat

File, IOR: Mss Eur E341/46, London, British Library.131 Mandal, Aprakasita Atmakatha, p. 229, PCSJM.132 Ibid., p. 230.



360 / DWAIPAYAN SEN


Despite the Federations limitations, the Congress deliberately sought to mar-

ginalise the sole political organisation that posed a threat to its hegemony over

the Dalits in the 1946 elections. And in spite of the Congress’ inimicality, Mandal

was able to organise Ambedkar’s election to the Constituent Assembly—an ex-

ceptional triumph amidst utterly hostile circumstances. Subsequently, Mandal

furthermore became the object of Indian and Hindu nationalist critique given his

association with the League both in the Government of Bengal and the Interim

Government of India, against the backdrop of the most unprecedented acts of

mass communal violence in modern South Asian history. His views on this vio-

lence thus stood considerably at odds with those who saw in them the ultimate

justification for the Partition of Bengal. As I have suggested, both for Mandal,

and many others within the Federation and League, the riots of 1946 were not

easily assimilated as a simple matter of irreconcilability between Hindus and

Muslims.

When the Partition of Bengal became a distinct possibility, Mandal’s and the

Federation’s considerable campaign against the move was yet again met with

Congress’ opposition. In his view, not only would Partition fail to resolve com-

munalism, but would equally enact irreversible damage on the Federation’s exist-

ence, and leave the Dalits vulnerable to caste Hindus in the West and Muslims in

the East. Indeed, in his apprehensions, he was not entirely alone. In a little-known

seven-point public statement published by prominent caste Hindu personalities

of East Bengal—lawyers, members of the legislative assembly and council, and

members of the chamber of commerce—the signatories averred:

The Partition of Bengal will seriously affect the interest of the Scheduled Caste

Hindus, who form a predominantly large percentage of Hindus in East Bengal.

In case of Partition the well to do section of caste Hindus will naturally be in-

clined to move out of East Bengal and migrate to West Bengal, leaving the

poorer caste Hindus and the Scheduled Caste Hindus (who are mostly poor) to

their fate in an area, which for all practical purposes will be a Pakisthan [sic].

The very move for the partition will thus widen the gulf between the Sched-

uled Caste Hindus and caste Hindus at a time when we are seriously trying to

do away with all inequalities and caste distinctions.133

Evidently even those who stood to presumably benefit the most from Partition—

the caste Hindus of East Bengal—could not share in the certitude that its enact-

ment would not exacerbate the caste divide. This same point was raised once again

at a conference presided over by Sarat Chandra Bose in Calcutta, which opposed

133 The Nationalist, ‘Move for Partitioning Bengal Condemned’, in File No. 1128/46(1), Serial

No. 459/1946, Kolkata, West Bengal State Archives.





Partition ‘not only in the interest of East Bengal caste and Scheduled Caste Hindus

but in the cause of nationalism in India and of Indian independence itself’.134

The evidence furnished will not, I am certain, displace popular memories and

understandings of the ‘turn to communalism’ that so visibly marked public life in

the decades prior to Partition. Despite this, I have inclined my efforts towards

indicating that the various experiences that went into the making of an event such

as Partition cannot be contained by the story of communal politics and violence

alone, which lays emphasis on the replacement of caste by religion in community

identifications. Certainly, it is difficult to situate Mandal and his Federation within

the received narrative of Dalit integration and identification with the Bengal

Congress’s and Hindu Mahasabha’s aggressive anti-Muslim stance that valorised

a united Hindu demand for a divided province. To do so adequately however, is to

perceive the uneasy Hindu nationalist resolution of the caste question in Partition

as a necessary and deep premise of the communal logic structuring this founda-

tional event.

No doubt Mandal and the Federation’s defeat in Bengal may well be traced to

their own shortcomings. But as this article has shown, there were other explana-

tions as well: namely, the various attempts to ensure their decline. These were

bound to the Congress’ and Mahasabha’s efforts at constructing a united Hindu

community which unanimously demanded the Partition of their province. To the

many casualties of Partition, one might add the very possibility for Dalit political

autonomy.

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‘no matter how, jogendranath had to be defeated’: the scheduled castes federation and the making...

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