Abstract
This article has been written to offer an account of the history of Calcutta’s urban politics and society. By revolving around the evolution of Calcutta Corporation and BPCC, the article intends to show that Calcutta, once the pioneer of anti-colonialist movements, concentrated so much on its urban politics in later colonial period that it not only caused a division within the national political field, but also betrayed India during its struggle for independence. The regionalism that developed in this period, along with the narrow interests of its leaders, undermined Gandhian ‘countervailing hegemony’, opposed to colonialism.
Introduction
Bengal’s socio-political realm has experienced several shifts in characteristics since the advent of colonial rule in India. After the establishment of Calcutta Corporation in 1876, the urban variation of Bengal’s politics experienced a pivotal change in its characteristics. It is this change that helped shape part of the course of Bengal’s urban political realm till the 1940s. The nature of Bengal’s urban society and politics was different from that of other provinces, and therefore, we can observe that Bengal developed a regionalism within the pan-Indian nationalism. The non-martial ‘feminine’ people of Bengal were held to be distinctively different from the more ‘masculine’ martial races. 1 However, it was also this Bengal that initiated a violent series of revolutionary actions against British rule. This article aims to examine the socio-political scenario of Bengal’s urban centre, Calcutta, after the Non-Cooperation Movement until the ‘Quit India’ agitation.
Earlier Developments
Studying the socio-political conditions of colonial Bengal, particularly the circumstances in its capital centre, one must recognise that, at the core of these developments, there was control over the Calcutta Corporation. 2 Earlier, it was naturally dominated by the Europeans, both official and non-official. Its primary aim was to develop and maintain the European quarters in Southern Calcutta, mainly by the rent of the native residents of North Calcutta. The indigenous people too represented their interests by creating associations with the landowning class at its core. Urban politics and society in late ninetieth-century Bengal were Calcutta-centric, the associations and chambers of commerce were the dominant political organisations and pressure groups, where non-Bengali trading classes (Marwari, Rajasthani and so on) were not included; the middle class and the lower rungs of Bengali society were relatively neglected, and the labour question was yet to be answered. However, one interesting thing to notice here is that while the European political organisations were on the leash of their chambers of commerce, the indigenous political organisations had no plans to secure the economic interests of the trading class. 3 After the establishment of the Indian National Congress and two significant changes in the constitution of the corporation, the socio-political scenario in Calcutta gradually started undermining its European domination.
The Old Guards
Hitherto, the corporation was dominated by European official and non-official groups, but now men like Surendranath Banerjea, Ambika Charan Majumdar, Provash C. Mitter, Bhupendranath Basu, Lal Mohan Ghosh and Nawab Ali Chowdhury started sharing and grasping control of this institution. 4 But, as a daily lamented, ‘Only men who have money and possess influence and can manipulate the votes get into the bodies again return members to the Legislative Council. These babus, who are briskly canvassing for voters, whom do they represent’? 5 On the other hand, the Swadeshi movement became a testament to their failure as political agents. Gautam Chattopadhyay argued that the moderate protest had a tone of despair and did not represent the Bengali mood in 1905. 6 Thus, they lost their external legitimacy significantly, and the people of Bengal wanted change. This can be observed well when people show support for the militancy instead of moderation. 7 Men like A.K. Fazl-ul-Huq and his extremist peers showed a different attitude, and with support from the peasantry, lower middle classes from eastern Bengal and urban Muslims of western Bengal, they were ready to give moderates a strong jolt.
Dropping the Pilots
The subsequent events prior to the ascension of C.R. Das changed the due course of this urban political field and gave it a rather ghastly tint. Apart from the failure during the anti-partition movement, the actions taken by the consecrated Banerjea and the moderates were becoming anti-patriotic and anti-national. The moderates were now often competing against the Zamindars for British favours. During the Great War (1914–18), the moderates supported British war effort. However, it was the war that proved to be a curse for them. Criticism from ‘extremists’ mounted against both the government and moderates affected the popular support of the latter. The elections of June 1916 gave the avant extremists and Muslim nationalists an upper hand. The Lucknow Pact ensured a joint push from both Hindus and Muslims against their alien government. In the Bengal provincial conference that year, Bipin Chandra Pal and Chittaranjan Das ousted the moderates, including Banerjea from the hold of Bengal Congress. The BPCC, led by Das, Byomkesh Chakravarti and Huq, along with the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), criticised the Montagu-Chelmsford report. Banerjea and his peers, after this humiliation from this newer generation of extremists, left Congress and formed National Liberal League.
After the Morley-Minto reform, the smog of structural alteration in the corporation started to spread across Calcutta. The existing influential political agents were ready to utilise this opportunity for the power they always searched for. Furthermore, for Banerjea and his supporters, it was their last-ditch effort to gain legitimacy and power after their exodus from the Congress. ‘Diarchy’ proved to be a crucial weapon for men like him, as their aim was about to be fulfilled. As a minister in Bengal government, he started to draft the new constitution, which would ultimately result in the autonomisation or, as Chakraborty argued, institutionalisation of the political field (in this case the corporation) under his tutelage. 8 However, the support of Banerjea, Provash ‘Rowlatt’ Mitter and Nawab Ali Chowdhury for the draconian Rowlatt Act and the consequent suppression of agitators caused massive resentment amongst the populace of Bengal and extremists. The constitution was drafted in 1922, and a general election was proposed. To Banerjea’s disappointment, C.R. Das won the election in 1923 and became the first Bengali mayor of Calcutta Corporation. Chattopadhyay, while discussing the debacle for Banerjea, writes, ‘Surendranath Banerjea, once a national hero, was now a sorry figure, accepting knighthood and minister’s post from the British, whose hands, in the eyes of awakened people, were tainted with the blood of Jallianwala Bagh martyrs’. 9 The once ‘Surrender Not Banerjea’, who resigned from the Municipal Corporation in 1899 as a protester of its unjust reconstruction, became ‘Surrender Banerjea’, a mere creature of history. 10
Deshbandhu
C.R. Das was a skilled lawyer before his entry into urban politics. He, in many instances, defended revolutionaries, particularly the famous Ghosh brothers in the Manicktala Conspiracy Case, Aurobindo Ghosh and Barindranath Ghosh. The profession of barrister and the messiah defending revolutionaries earned him both wealth and respect. Moreover, hailing from a Bhadralok (gentleman) family, he acquired vast knowledge of Bengali literature and heritage. The speech at Bhawanipore in the Bengal Provincial Conference meeting in 1917 is one of many instances where he championed the cause of Bengal, focusing on her ailments and proposed remedies. 11 It must also be kept in mind that in order to confront the elite politicians in Calcutta, Das mobilised rural political elements against them. 12 These capitals made it possible for him to be recognised as a legitimate member of Bengal’s political field, from within and outside.
Das’s ‘Camelot’ and ‘Heretic’ Gandhi
When Das acquired the position of mayor, he started to autonomise the corporation. After his arrival, out of twelve seats, the European members in select committee had only two seats reserved for them. This meant that the rules of the game also changed. Men like Subash Chandra Bose, Jatindra Mohan Sen Gupta, Sarat Chandra Bose, Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, Birendra Nath Sasmal, Bidhan Chandra Roy, Nirmal Chandra Chanda, Pratap Guha Roy, H.S. Suhrawardy, Fazlul Haq and Prince Akram Khan became the legitimate and recognised members of this field. A government report, 1926, admitted,
In the contest for supremacy the Swarajists had the great advantage of being the only force in possession of a highly developed organisation backed by party funds and capable of keeping its ranks united, of procuring attendance of its members on the occasion of all important votes, and of exercising influence over the members of other groups.
13
In this context, it is important to notice that none of the above (except Sen Gupta, Sasmal and Roy) had any significant contact with the Gandhian bloc before the demise of Das in 1925. 14 Each of them was carefully selected by Das, and served as an active member of the Swaraj Party, established by Das after the sudden withdrawal of non-cooperation. Sanyal argued that Das always pursued politics with an eye to the interests of the group he led; thus, his negligence for Gandhi and his rural reconstruction programme were natural. 15
The Gandhian bloc was not included in this political field due to its non-conformity with Das’s corporation-centric politics, and the seeds of this exodus were sown after non-cooperation. C.R. Das spearheaded the movement in Bengal from 1919 to 1922. Das did not accept Gandhi, and, as M.R. Jayakar observed, he was wary of Gandhi’s political hegemony, particularly his power to enchant the youth for political purposes. 16 Another important factor was that Gandhi was a non-Bengali, and could call on support from the Marwari and non-Bengali business class. During the Great War, the non-Bengali traders’ community supposedly earned a great chunk of profit, acting as agents for the Bengali traders. Moreover, the Muslim population had issues of discord with them, resulting in riots in 1912, 1918 and 1926. 17 Communal harmony was quintessential for the wide base of support that Das was trying to obtain, and therefore, Muslims had to be placated. Das also knew of the importance of the support provided by the revolutionaries, who were not in line with the preacher of non-violence. Das had all of this in his mind, but at the same time, as described by Gallagher, he was an ‘…opportunist in Indian politics, virtuoso of agitation, broker between irreconcilables, gambler for glittering stakes’. 18 He wanted to rejuvenate the long-lost glory of Bengal’s political dominance on the national plane, which had then passed under the control of Gandhi. He compromised with Gandhi for the time being and followed his prescription of counter-hegemony against the British. The first cleavage sprung up when Gandhi withdrew the movement in the aftermath of the Chauri-Chaura incident. Das wanted to continue this movement, at least within the Legislative Assembly, which went against Gandhi’s policy at the time. This made Das part ways with Gandhi, and the Swaraj Party was born. When the election in corporation took place, Das wanted to secure this political field, and he did so.
Communalism and the Bengal Pact
At this point, it can be argued that Das was not adamant in expanding the political field throughout India, nor did he have the means to do so. Moreover, the motherland in which Das believed was not the motherland Gandhi wanted to see upon independence. 19 The regional autonomy of Bengal’s political field, which was possible due to the vernacularisation of Bengali politics, was all he aspired for. 20 As a mayor, he, for the first time, focused on the poor and downtrodden segment of Bengali society and worked for their improvement. To combat the ailment of communal tensions, he, as a leader, had to bring Muslims from religious and political fields under the same umbrella. Perhaps, Das understood the importance of Muslim votes, as it ‘…bore much the same relation to politics in Bengal as the Irish vote used to bear to English politics in the House of Commons’. 21 It is true that then the caste Hindus, in both urban political, social and religious fields, were dominant, whereas the Muslims lagged far behind in both fields.
Therefore, by amalgamating the religious and political fields of Muslims through the Bengal Pact, Das sought to cool the communal tensions in Calcutta. On the other hand, Muslims were looking for opportunities to secure their rights. Das also included the revolutionaries within the political field in order to gain their support. However, it is also important to mention that, even though he initiated many welfare reforms, the level of corruption under his regime was not reduced. 22 He failed to bridge the rift between the political agents in rural sections and the agents in cosmopolitan Calcutta. This rift, after his death, proved to be fatal for the Swaraj Party and the political field he had so carefully redesigned. Moreover, he never incorporated the Gandhian ‘Bhadralok’ section in his scheme. Men like Suresh Chandra Banerjee, Satish Chandra Das Gupta, Prafulla Chandra Ghosh and Nriprendra Nath Banerjee were not in line with the anti-Gandhi doxa that prevailed within Das’s urban political field. 23 Moreover, they did not have the cultural, social and political capital necessary for the urban political field due to their inclination towards Gandhi, whose political, economic and social ideas were heterodox. Thus, they confined themselves to the rural field of this politics, initiated rural reconstruction agendas modelled after Gandhian thoughts, and achieved some success.
The Tripartite Struggle
Das’s death initiated a tripartite struggle for dominance within the political field among three primary agents: Bubhas Bose, Sengupta and Sasmal. 24 Bose, the most powerful of them all and the heir presumptive of Das at that time, was in a prison in Mandalay. Sasmal’s claim for the post of CEO in 1924 was vehemently rejected by the caste Hindu group for his rural lineage and lower caste background, resulting in his temporary departure from urban politics; he only returned to it in 1926. 25 Sen Gupta had ‘flaws’ as well, but the Gandhian intervention made him the mayor of the corporation. 26 However, Sen Gupta charmed the revolutionaries with lucrative posts, and they started supporting him. Sasmal, as mentioned earlier, came back to the political stage of Calcutta, but crossed swords with the revolutionaries over the Bengal Pact, for which he and Sen Gupta both still stood. The Karmi Sangha, after this, merged again with the BPCC under the big five, and both were able to detach Sen Gupta from Sasmal. Sen Gupta, after 1926, tried to exclude this Sangha and the agents from the political field that his once mentor had designed. Sasmal became a threat for the Sangha and Sen Gupta, who formed an alliance temporarily to exclude Sasmal from this urban political field. However, in 1927, Sasmal was defeated, and the Karmi Sangha, along with Muslim support, made Sen Gupta the mayor again. Sasmal temporarily retired from the city politics and went back to the rural political field of Midnapore. In 1928, Sen Gupta received a similar blow, and Subhash Bose was nominated for the post of mayor. The Congress lost its power to gain permanent majority by then, and this resulted in a win of non-Congress groups under B.K. Basu. Meanwhile, Sen Gupta made a compact with the Muslim group, which was more generous to Muslims than even the Bengal Pact. In 1929, Sen Gupta was again elected as the mayor. 27
Civil Disobedience and the Betrayal
The civil disobedience was now right around the corner. The larger political field in Bengal, along with its urban variant, reconciled temporarily and joined hands with this movement. However, the urban field did not share the same enthusiasm that the rural political fields had for it. Bose was steadily obtaining support and capital, and the BPCC was eager to nominate him for election as mayor. Sen Gupta also wanted to maintain his authority within the field, and sought support from the Calcutta DCCs. Moreover, he was entrusted by Gandhi with the task of defending the Nehru Report and later the Poona Pact (with Ambedkar) in Bengal. The Poona Pact was a jolt to the upper-caste Hindu elites, as it gave layer share in the political field to the scheduled castes. Earlier, Sen Gupta, by broadening Das’s plans for Muslims, had already caused a stir within the field. Jawaharlal Nehru, after getting reports of this menace, lamented over this issue by saying, ‘When everyone is thinking and talking of civil disobedience, in Calcutta people quarrel over the Municipal election’. 28
None of the members in the fields seemed eager to follow the instructions given by the AICC. The fight between the agents for one political field reached its critical stage in this period. Sen Gupta was elected as mayor, but his mayoralty did not last long. Bose and Sen Gupta were both arrested for their participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930. According to the proviso of CMA, Sen Gupta had to return within three months, failing which the position of mayor would be conferred on B.C. Roy. Muslims were completely excluded from the urban political field, as they were not given a single seat, and so they remained aloof. Bose, with the support of the BPCC, was elected as an alderman. Sen Gupta, in deteriorating health, wanted to fight against Bose, but later withdrew his name. Roy also withdrew his claim for mayoralty. Finally, Subhash Chandra Bose was elected as the mayor of the corporation and became the legitimate wielder of authority over Calcutta, and, to some extent, even Bengal. 29 Although the tragedy is that the agents, whom Das had carefully chosen and trained, were fighting for their hold over this political field even in prison; they perhaps forgot the reason why they were in prison, that is, for engaging themselves in the mass agitation that was designed to drive out the colonial oppressors. 30
Conclusion and Core Argument
The political field of cosmopolitan Calcutta thus orbited around the corporation and sometimes the Bengal Legislative Council. This resulted in Bengal’s isolation from the national scenario for much of the late colonial period. When the entire India was rising up against their alien and foreign government, Bengali leaders were fighting amongst themselves for something so frivolous as positions on urban boards. 31 This can be considered a betrayal. In this context, Gandhi, his Bhadralok followers, rural leaders and leaders from lower castes and classes were never destined to become a part of this field. Gandhian ‘countervailing hegemony’, which was necessary for the anti-colonial struggle, failed to penetrate the minds of the leaders from Bengal, who had their own local battles to fight. 32 Therefore, the memory of once spearheading the independence movement now withered away like ashes.