Rakesh Batabyal. Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali, 1943-1947. London:
Thousand Oaks, 2005. 428 pp. $97.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7619-3335-9.
Reviewed by Anirudh Deshpande (Motilal Nehru College (E), University of Delhi)
Published on H-Asia (July, 2007)
Colonial Cousins: Communalism and Nationalism in Modern India
the ancient period, but communalism refers to a modern
consolidation of religious groups and identities and the
politicization of religious organization and conflict which
began during the colonial period, especially in the nineteenth century. While Indians contend with communalism in their everyday lives, it must be remembered that
the development of the “two nation theory” leading to the
creation of Pakistan on the basis of a mythical and monolithic Muslim nation in 1947 and the growth of Hindutva
in the 1980s and 1990s were the most important achievements of communalism in twentieth-century India. The
book under review should be read in this context of communalism in modern and contemporay India.
For readers unfamiliar with the terms in which
modern Indian history is usually written, communalism
should be described before the review of the book is presented. The word communalism obviously comes from
community and communal which may mean entirely different things to people in the West. The closest parallels
of communalism in India are racism and anti-Semitism,
etc. in the West; while in India communalism makes a
person prefer a certain communal identity over other secular identities. In many parts of the West a position of
racial superiority is assumed by many individuals and social groups over people of non-European extraction. In
both instances religious or race identities are internalized and displayed by individuals who believe in myths,
which constitute an ideology. The modern systematic
articulation of such myths is called communal ideology
in the Indian sub-continent. Selective history, carefully
constructed memories of injustices, a variety of myths,
the role of the state, and violence in multiple forms are
the foundations of communalism. Social exclusion and
communal violence ranging from carefully organized riots by political formations to pogroms, such as the one
witnessed in Gujarat in 2002, are integral to communalism in India. Readers who have not read much of Indian history but are well versed in European and American history can easily understand “Indian communalism”
with reference to similar developments in the context
of many European and American countries. Although
there is another form in which communalism manifests
itself in India, called “casteism,” communalism in general
refers to religious communalism. India, like most other
countries, has a history of religious conflict going back to
This book narrates the rise of communalism in Bengal in the short term and tries to define communalism
as an ideology. Throughout the volume both Muslim
and Hindu communalism is theorized in opposition to
a secular Indian nationalism of which the Indian National Congress (in Rakesh Batabyal’s view) appears as
the greatest exponent. Politics in Bengal during the 1940s
came to be influenced by the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, and the Communists at the expense of an ineffective Congress which, mainly due to the rise of Subhas Bose, had split into the pro- and anti-Bose factions.
While communalism is defined as an ideology, nationalism in the colonial period cannot be defined easily as
its opposite. The author has conceived the entire project
on the basis of drawing a neat line of demarcation between communalism and nationalism. The book gives us
a good idea of what communalism meant in Bengal during the 1940s, which was dominated by the Great Famine
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of 1943 and conditions arising from the Second World
War. But it does not say much about nationalism as an
ideology. Since the volume eschews a long-term perspective on nationalism and its complex relationship with
communalism, it fails to answer some important questions. For instance, was Indian nationalism something
much more than a striving for national unity against imperialism? What were its long-term weaknesses which
created the space for the growth of communal ideologies and the two nation theory in India? Why did communalism replace nationalism as the stronger force of
the two in people’s lives during the 1940s? This volume is not designed to answer these questions, important as they are in the context of rising communalism
in India during the last quarter of the nineteenth and
first half of the twentieth centuries. Instead, after repeatedly underlining Congress’s helplessness in the face of
growing communal frenzy in Bengal in a chapter on the
Noakhali riots, the author deflects the reader’s attention
to Gandhi’s highly personalized and greatly publicized
struggle against communal violence.
ity, Gandhi emerged as a symbol of peace. His removal of
himself from the ideological site of partition could do little to address the causes of communalism in India. Indeed
his moral leadership of the Congress nationalist movement had also undoubtedly contributed to it. Ultimately
he could neither arrest the decline of secular nationalism
nor take the majority of the Congress with him.
Ironically, in his finest hour Gandhi had already become irrelevant to the vast majority of Indians (and Pakistanis, it may always be added as an afterthought) in
1946-47. Quit India in 1942 and the sterile belated talks
with Jinnah in 1944 were Gandhi’s individual decisions.
Was there any point in virtually conceding Pakistan and
denying the two nation theory at the same time? The
Quit India resolution, it is well known, did not have the
support of all Congressmen and ended up removing the
Congress from the center stage of Indian politics during the war, while the talks with the “sole spokesman”
ended up enhancing Jinnah’s stature and legitimizing his
communal claims even amongst several Muslims who
could still be called Congress supporters in 1944. Both inTowards the end of the volume, in chapter 8, Gandhi’s stances demonstrated serious flaws in a movement over
only too well-known sojourn in Noakhali is highlighted which a single and often momentarily ill-informed pain an attempt to capture the Mahatma’s rather touching triarch had so much influence. In the ultimate analyfinest hour. This is done to offer an alternative to the sis Gandhi’s moral authority could neither substitute nor
communalization of popular psyche in India. However, overcome the collective failure of the Congress leaderas the facts marshaled by Batabyal inadvertently tell us, ship in dealing with the communal question.
by 1946 Gandhi was a spent force in Indian politics. AlComing to Bengal it is not difficult to observe that
though his moral message would live on in a tiny secGandhi
was instrumental in getting Bose ousted from the
tion of inspired Indians, the somewhat baffling and illCongress
and thereby mortally wounding it. A Congress
conceived Quit India movement of 1942 and his recogin disarray, or whatever remained of it after the impornition of Jinnah as the most important representative of
tant leaders had been jailed in 1942, was hardly in a posiIndian Muslims in 1944 most certainly helped the rise of
communalism in India in the 1940s. These are the impor- tion to combat the kind of communalism which began to
tant facts informing the rise of Jinnah and the demand for sweep the Bengal social landscape from 1943 onwards.
Pakistan which readers can easily glean from Batabyal’s The book presents an excellent survey of how the abmeticulous research. But the problem of dealing with sence of viable alternatives helped communalism grow
in Bengal during the 1940s. The colonial state, Muslim
Gandhi’s approach to the communal question remains
League, and Hindu Mahasabha are rightly implicated in
unaddressed. According to this reviewer the distinction
between Gandhi as a person and Gandhi as the unques- the growth of the communal project. At this time the intioned moral leader of the Congress is more important to terests of Moscow guided the Communists and even they
the historian. It is nobody’s argument that Gandhi did upheld the claims of the Muslim League.
not oppose communalism as best as he could within the
Important as these findings are, the volume fails to
limits of his world view. Unfortunately for the people address some important questions. It does not tell us why
of Bengal and many other parts of India, which suffered the Congress was not a force to reckon with among the
the consequences of partition this kind of moral oppo- masses of Bengal in the 1940s. Why was the peasantry
sition, in the absence of an organized cadre based fight of Bengal alienated from the Congress that had orgaagainst communalism, simply was not enough to save nized mass anti-imperialist movements across the counthem from the horrors of communal hatred and violence. try in 1905, 1921-22 and 1930-32? Unless the story of
After the die was cast and partition became a ground real- this mass alienation from the Congress in Bengal is re-
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counted, it is impossible to fully comprehend how the
Muslim League emerged as the most important party of
the Bengali Muslims in the space of a few years. If peasant unrest was ultimately articulated in communal ideology, as the author concedes in a short conclusion (p. 383),
why did the Congress fail to address and utilize this unrest in the 1930s and 1940s ? The election results of 1946
in Bengal (p.218) only expressed the communal polarization of the Bengalis which took place during the Second
World War–the Congress polled only 0.5 percent of Muslim votes in comparison with the League which got 89.6
percent of Muslim votes. Pakistan had been created. Obviously, given the developments during the war years,
by 1946 all “memories of class and communal solidarity
against the colonial power were forgotten” in Bengal (p.
383). The fact that communalism grew and secular nationalism declined in Indian politics increasingly since
the 1920s is not given due importance in this volume because of the author’s Left-Nationalist paradigm.
communalism. It often comes hand in glove with myths
which are normally associated with a pre-modern societies. A critical study of India’s anti-colonial freedom
struggle shows that communalism and nationalism grew
together in the first half of the twentieth century. Both
derived legitimacy from the process of modernity ushered into India by the various structures of British colonialism. The question is why and how were these two
supposedly different political phenomena related? Despite favoring a line which artificially separates nationalism and communalism in India, the author concedes
that nationalism failed to accommodate communalism
in modern India (pp. 58-59). Did this happen because
the epistemological link between nationalism and communalism was strong enough to overcome the compulsions of national unity against the foreigner? Or, did the
Congress brand of nationalism fail because it did not satisfy the socio-economic aspirations of the majority of Indians who were marginalized, poor and illiterate? These
questions remain open in this otherwise well researched
thesis.
The book comprises nine chapters including the short
conclusion. The long and comprehensive introduction,
which is kept outside the chapterization scheme, is called
“Communalism and Historiography.” It comprises the
most problematic part of the book raising important theoretical questions regarding the various historical approaches to communalism. The Colonial-Cambridge,
Marxist, and Post-Modernist perspectives on communalism in India have been commented upon in the introduction. However, upon carefully reading the introduction,
this reviewer was left wondering whether Indian communalism is a product of modernity or an outcome of insufficient modernization. A pre-history of communalism
going back to the early nineteenth century certainly exists but there was no communalism, as we know it from
the colonial times onwards, in pre-colonial India. What
explains the absence of communal riots in Mughal India
despite the other conflicts which raged in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries? Obviously communities, provided they existed as we perceive them today, pursued
politics differently in pre-colonial India. Both accommodation and exclusion of regional elites was practiced at
the imperial Mughal court in Agra, but the frictions and
politics of the Mughal era did not create communalism.
Chapters 1, 2, and 3 survey politics in Bengal in the
context of the famine of 1943 and the Second World War.
Chapter 4 presents an analysis of political trends in 194546 and examines the build up to the communal frenzy
which swept Bengal in the latter half of 1946. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 zoom in on the well documented Calcutta
killings and Noakhali-Tippera Riots. Then comes the alternative to communalism in a chapter on Gandhi’s battle against communal hatred in Noakhali followed by the
conclusion. The book makes for easy reading and parts
of it dealing with the famine and riots are quite interesting. However the admirable efforts of the author are
somewhat marred by his taking potshots at other Indian
historians who also have laudable contributions to their
credit. For instance chapter 5 on the Calcutta Riots begins
with an unnecessary attack on Ranajit Guha, the wellknown founder of the Subaltern School of Indian historiography (pp. 237-238). While it is true that subaltern
historians have focused their energies on popular movements which often took a violent turn in colonial India
they do not seem to have justified communal violence
which occurred between various subaltern groups. It is
indeed difficult to agree with Batabyal when, with referAt the same time communalism has thrived even as
ence to Guha’s position, he writes the following: “VioIndia has modernized decade after decade since 1947. No lence of such magnitude cannot be simply reduced to the
matter how you perceive it one thing seems to be clear– manifestation of an assumption of emancipation of the
economic modernization and modernity (or westerniza- oppressed” (p. 238). Is all violence reduced to emancipation) does not spell the end of communalism. Indeed, tory violence in the subaltern scheme of things? This reas Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and Gujarat in
viewer does not think so. Mass participation in the comour times demonstrate, modernization does not preclude
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munal project and the violence integral to it occurs because of the internalization of elite communal ideology
by the masses. This is different from a subaltern consciousness which develops against elite domination and
hegemony.
analysis from the explanatory framework appears to be
an act of deliberate shortsightedness. Such belittling of
well-informed and sociologically enriching perspectives
can have unfortunate theoretical consequences. Scoring
needless points does lead to a lopsided understanding of
the “hegemonic hold” which the communalists developed
Guha is not the only one at the receiving end. Anover the people of Bengal (p. 260). Since the psychologother example is Sudhir Kakar, the famous Indian psyical connection between “hegemonic hold” and individchoanalyst, who is criticized for not displaying “much in- uals subscribing to the communal ideology is precluded
tellectual force” is his understanding of communal con- from the book’s paradigm, holding the masses largely reflict. This act of sniping, apparently caused by an un- sponsible for the communal violence of 1946 is a short
pardonable failure of Kakar to describe religious conflict step away. Hence the chapter on the Calcutta Riots conas communal conflict, is followed by a quote from his
tains the following revealing sentences: “At the same
Colours of Violence (1996) which makes perfect sense to
time, however, to repose the burden on Suhrawardy and
me: “Together with religious selfhood, the ’I-ness’ of reli- the League, and on the other hand to blame the Congress
gious identity, we have a second track of ’We-ness’ which leadership for uttering irresponsible statements or being
is the experience of being part of a community of believ- eager to arrive at a compromise with the colonial authorers” (p. 51). That is precisely how individual conscious- ities, leads one to the fallacy of ignoring the culpability
ness grows into collective and ultimately communal conof the communalised masses of people, who alone could
sciousness. French historians would call this the process
commit acts of such communal depredations” (emphasis
of mentality formation. I find nothing wrong in Kakar’s in original, p. 259).
assertion, especially since no ideology is free of psychological aspects. Is religion itself not a product of human
Alone? Can the communalised masses act alone ? Is
psychological desires? Why a social being attracted to an communal mass violence autonomous? Readers more
ideology is often a psychological question which may be aware of the concept of hegemony than this reviewer can
informed by other reasons like economics as well. You do answer these questions on their own. As far as the book
not have to be an expert to perceive that deep seated fears is concerned, the brilliant descriptions of violence it conof the “other” and various pathological feelings under- tains clearly mention the role of local leadership (not to
line the appeal and popularity of communalism. But to speak of the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day call and
attempt a definition of communalism foremost as an ide- a colonial state unable and unwilling to preserve peace)
ology, as Batabyal is trying to do, by excluding psycho- in the spread of violence.
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Citation: Anirudh Deshpande. Review of Batabyal, Rakesh, Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali,
1943-1947. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. July, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13458
Copyright © 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
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