Social Location of Hindu Dalits and Muslim Peasants in Late Colonial Bengal: Depiction of the Malo Community in Adwaita Mallabarman’s A River Called Titashz

Abstract

It is not new in India to have Dalits and Muslims engage politically for social empowerment. Following the partition of India, their political engagement is largely slackened. Similarly, the unity among Dalits and Muslim peasants in late colonial Bengal was stronger than it is today. Both sections of society used to share a similar political interest. Several historians suggest that Hindu Dalits in late colonial Bengal were associated with Muslim peasants as their social allies. According to multiple historians, the disparity between Muslims and untouchable tenants was potentially less than that between untouchables and upper-class landlords. During the colonial era, untouchables and Muslims formed political alliances to oppose the dominant upper-class Hindu landlords. A River Called Titash portrays a low-caste Hindu fishing community called the Malo in late colonial Bengal and their friendly coexistence with other communities, especially with Muslim peasants. The author, as a member of the Malo community, ethnographically elaborates on the story of their lives, including births, marriages and deaths. In every aspect of their lives, there is a solid anguish against caste discrimination that pervades. By emphasizing the social engagement of the Malo with Muslim peasants, this research article aims to examine the type of social alliance that exists between them and how these two groups view each other as social allies. Additionally, it can serve as an example of the contemporary social position of Dalits in late colonial Bengal and their political alliances with Muslims.