Article

Beyond Conspiracy and Contemporary Voice of Dalit

13(1) 50–65, 2021
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West Bengal under the DOI: 10.1177/2455328X211008434
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Left Front Rule (1977–2011)

Ayan Guha1

Abstract
This article has critically engaged with the speculative claim that the disappearance of caste question
from public discourse during Left rule in West Bengal was a result of conscious upper-caste ploy to
silence articulation of caste interests and tactfully eliminate the possibility of Dalit political assertion.
To verify the veracity of this claim, this study has critically scrutinized Left Front’s political mobilization
strategy of rural population and also its landmark land reform initiative. The investigation attempted
by this article, in this regard, has revealed that there is little to suggest the existence of any organized
upper-caste conspiracy. It is, however, true that the articulation and aggregation of political demands
along the lines of caste was indeed averted in West Bengal through political tactics and developmental
strategies devised by the upper castes. But, the marginalization of the caste question in mainstream
politics was an unintended consequence of such political tactics and developmental strategies which
were primarily designed with the objective to preserve and enlarge the political support base, rather
than to contain the lower castes. Thus, political motives acted as far more important determinants of
political and developmental activities rather than any inherent caste bias.

Keywords
Left, caste, class, Dalit, bhadralok, land reform, political mobilization

Since late 1970s, caste-based political agenda has shaped political strategy in different states of India.
However, West Bengal under the long rule of the Left Front (1977–2011) remained immune from caste-
based articulation and aggregation of political demands. The reason for the lack of political significance
accorded to the question of caste in the politics of the state has been attributed to the dominant role of
political parties, mainly Communist Party of India-Marxist [CPI(M)] and its allied parties, which took
over the social role of traditional communities and social institutions such as caste. In this regard, it has

1
Jamia Hamdard (Deemed University), New Delhi, India.

Corresponding author:
Ayan Guha, Hamdard Institute of Legal Studies and Research, Jamia Hamdard (Deemed University), New Delhi 110062, India.
E-mail: mailgooho@gmail.com
Guha 51

been claimed that since the poor achieved the benefits of gaining access to the government machinery
through hyper-active political parties and also found the political parties to be protecting their claims and
entitlements against socially dominant powerful proprietary interests, they somehow chose to ignore the
social interventionism of the left parties and their overwhelmingly upper-caste character (Bhattacharyya,
2011). Thus, the hegemonic hold of the upper castes over the society, operative through upper-caste
dominated parties, was based upon the impression that it was favourable to the interests of the Dalits or
lower orders of the society. It is this impression which ruled out the possibility of any adverse reaction
or resistance against political monopoly of the upper castes and intrusion of the party into the social and
communal realms. The upper-caste hegemony remained secure also because of a range of factors
highlighted by available literature—geographical dispersal of lower-caste population after partition
(Bandyopadhyay, 2009), Hinduization of Dalit identity brought about by partition-inflicted communal
polarization (Bandyopadhyay, 2009), powerful appeal of progressive and secular political idioms shaped
by the ideological influence of the Communists (Guha, 2016; Kumar & Guha, 2014) factors relating to
demography and political economy (Guha, 2017, 2019, 2021).
In all these accounts, the non-emergence of an autonomous Dalit political lexicon in West Bengal is
seen as a consequence of the structure or configuration of a variety of socio-economic events and factors,
rather than a targeted outcome of calculated and calibrated efforts, aimed at the subversion of Dalit
political assertion. In other words, in these accounts absence of caste politics is viewed as an outcome of
efforts undertaken for the purpose other than silencing of political articulation of lower-caste interests.
For example, in Bandyopadhyay’s (2009, 2011) account, the process of Hinduization that played some
role in blunting caste sentiments in the aftermath of partition was designed as counter-response, directed
towards Muslim League’s version of a narrow, chauvinistic nationalism. This by implication means that
its purpose was not to bulldoze Dalit identity per se. However, the sense of belongingness to Hindu
religious identity that emerged under the mounting pressure of Islamic fundamentalism ended up
weakening the Dalit consciousness to a significant extent. Similarly, in Chatterjee’s account (2016) the
efforts of the Communists to influence and shape the general political modus operandi in the direction of
their ideological preferences have been considered responsible for the emergence of a political culture
inimical to politicization of caste. Thus, non-politicization of caste has not been deemed as an outcome
of deliberate efforts directed towards subversion of lower-caste assertion. In the account of Bhattacharyya
(2011, 2017), the quest for maintenance and expansion of political support base has been held responsible
for the efforts by the left parties to establish primacy of the political over the social, which undermined
in effect the social role of traditional institutions like caste and religion. Thus, in all these narratives, the
absence of autonomous Dalit political agency is not perceived as a targeted means to realize the goal of
upper-caste supremacy but as an unintended effect of a structure or configuration of a variety of socio-
economic factors and phenomena. Emphasis has mainly been placed upon the social structure constitutive
of enduring features, processes and traditions of society which provide the influential background against
which political actions are undertaken.
But while social structure seems to exert powerful influence on human activity, the political subjects
are also known to exercise their agency. In sociological analysis, while the role of both structure and
agency is recognized, it is their relative importance which is often a debatable issue. The relative
importance of agency and structure has of late become an important issue in the debate concerning the
role of caste in West Bengal politics. Recently, a non-structuralist perspective on the issue has been
offered, which has cautioned about an overly structuralist interpretation. This non-structuralist position
on the issue by aiming to grapple with the vexed problem of upper-caste agency amounts to a challenge
to the prevailing perspectives. By focusing on the upper-caste agency, it has drawn our attention to the
volitional and purposeful nature of the caste elites. According to this new perspective, it is possible that
52 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

the assertion of Dalit political identity was averted in West Bengal through conspirational tactics
deployed by the upper castes who consciously resorted to multifarious contrivances in order to dilute
diffidence to upper-caste supremacy. Uditi Sen’s study (2014) of the refugee movement and rehabilitation
is somehow inclined to suggest that making of upper-caste domination in West Bengal was a conscious
process. She has argued that an active policy of social segregation was practiced by the upper castes
against the lower caste refugees, who were mostly Namasudras. The upper-caste refugees were allowed
to illegally occupy land and settle in squatters’ colonies in Calcutta. Such actions were justified on the
ground of dehumanizing condition in refugee camps and pavement shelters. However, the East Bengal
upper castes rarely encountered the experience of living in refugee camps, railway stations or pavement
shelters. They took shelter either in rented accommodation or in their relatives’ houses. Their motive
behind settling in squatters’ colonies came from the desperation to avoid the prospect of living with
lower-caste refugees in refugee colonies. Moreover, special care was taken to make room in squatters’
colonies only for the educated upper-caste people by displacing refuges deemed to be Chotolok (of low
status). Dwaipayyan Sen (2013, 2016) has also critically engaged with the vexed question of upper-caste
agency by focusing upon the policy of reservation. His study has attempted to show that the upper castes
in West Bengal consciously used their political power to commit sustained violations of constitutional
provisions concerning reservations. This led him to seriously consider the possibility that the upper-caste
Hindus of West Bengal actively sought their domination and undertook deliberate steps to marginalize
the lower castes in social and political spheres.
Thus, the non-structuralist view by putting agency over structure not only treads along a divergent
discursive trajectory but also mounts a challenge against the common premise on which existing accounts
of the reasons for non-politicization of caste in West Bengal is based. In this connection, diverging from
the so-called non-structuralist view point and building upon the so-called structuralist perspective, this
essay intends to argue that the articulation and aggregation of political demands along the lines of caste
was indeed averted in West Bengal through political tactics and developmental strategies devised by the
upper castes. But, the marginalization of the caste question in mainstream politics was an unintended
consequence of such political tactics and developmental strategies which were primarily designed with
the objective to preserve and enlarge the political support base, rather than to contain the lower castes.
Thus, political motives acted as far more important determinants of political and developmental
initiatives. Thus, this essay adheres to the basis structuralist premise that higher caste domination and the
related silence surrounding the caste question were not outcomes of deliberate strategy. They were
somehow the unintended consequences of actions and phenomena influenced by intentions other than
suppression of Dalit political agency.
In order to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis, this study focuses on two important aspects of
left rule in West Bengal—leftist strategy of political mobilization of rural population and agrarian reform
programme in the form of land reform and seeks to demonstrate that they were shaped by political
considerations rather than any organized upper caste ploy to keep other sections of the society socially
and politically submissive. The selection of these two cases is not arbitrary. It is imperative to focus upon
these two aspects for important reasons. They jointly provide an opening into the motives behind both
politics and policy. The Left Front ruled West Bengal for 34 years uninterruptedly becoming the longest
serving democratically elected Communist Government anywhere in the world primarily on the basis of
the overwhelming support it received from all sections of the rural populace. Therefore, a critical
dissection of the leftist strategy of political mobilization in rural areas may give us some insights as to
whether left politics in West Bengal was dictated by the motive to maintain upper-caste supremacy. On
the other hand, it is widely acknowledged that the most important policy measure of the Left Front
government was land reform. Therefore, by scrutinizing the rationale and consequences of the Left
Guha 53

Front’s land reform initiatives, it is partly possible to discover whether any conscious intent to further
upper-caste interests crept into the process of formulation of public policy.
By scrutinizing these two important aspects of the Left Front rule, this essay claims to illustrate that
lack of caste mobilization during the Left Front rule was based on unintended consequences of
development policy and political strategies and not due to a conscious strategy of the party leadership to
marginalize lower caste groups. In other words, the political and developmental strategies of the Left
Front, somehow, unintentionally produced effects which aided the eclipse of the caste question from
mainstream politics. In this connection, it has further been pointed out that political considerations
reigned supreme during the left rule. This essay has attempted to demonstrate the primacy of politics
over any other considerations in the shaping of electoral strategy and development initiatives during the
left rule through a re-reading of available literature. Its central concern is to highlight that accepted
findings, objective evidences and information available in existing studies on left politics and agrarian
reform in West Bengal provide necessary ammunition to blow up the myth that the absence of political
articulation and aggregation of caste interests was a result of a consciously crafted conspiracy.

Political Mobilization and Social Stratification: Unravelling

the Complex Nexus
Politics in Bengal has always been dominated by a middle class—the bhadralok (gentlemen).1 The
colonial land revenue system provided an impetus to the emergence of a relatively affluent group of
people. They were generally rent-receivers, bereft of any direct contact with land. With gradual reduction
in rental income, they enthusiastically embraced Western learning and grabbed low- and middle-level
positions in colonial bureaucracy and trading corporations. They came to be famously designated by the
term bhadralok. It was exposure to Western culture through Western education that gave the bhadraloks
a new culture and new way of life. They began to exhibit a great deal of refinement in their attire,
language, demeanour, food habits and consumption behaviour. It is this sense of cultural refinement that
set them apart from their fellow countrymen. The most crucial distinction between them and the so-called
abhadra (rustic and culturally non-refined people) and the general masses was their non-engagement in
manual labour (Broomfield, 1968, pp. 5–6). The bhadralok was technically a non-ascriptive group.
Anyone could gain entry into the privileged coterie of bhadralok through his exposure to modern
education, modern occupation and a particular style of culture. However, most of the members of this
group were drawn from the three upper castes of Bengal—Brahman, Kayastha and Vaidya (McGuire,
1983). As a result, the term bhadralok has generally become denotative of Bengali higher castes. Being
better positioned both socially and economically, this group came to control politics of West Bengal after
independence. This is clear from the fact that in Legislative Assembly and Cabinet, the upper castes
enjoyed representation disproportionately higher than their demographic strength.2
According to S. K Mishra (1991, p. 9), currently the CPI(M) State Secretary two of the most important
objectives of the CPI(M) were to ‘bring about a change in the correlation of caste forces in favour of the
poor and working people’ and ‘to raise class-consciousness through struggle over development’. Thus,
for the Left Front of West Bengal, just like any Communist political formation class, was a more relevant,
progressive and legitimate category while the question of caste was only a part of superstructure
(Bandyopadhyay, 2012, p. 73).3 Jyoti Basu, the ex-Chief Minister of West Bengal in his reply to the
Mandal Commission in 1980, stated that in West Bengal there were only two castes: the rich and the
poor. Thus, the official stand of the CPI(M) firmly denied the existence of any Other Backward Classes
(OBCs) in the State. However, various caste associations in their deposition before the Commission
54 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

differed from the stand taken by the Left Front government. A. N. Saha, Secretary, West Bengal Backward
Classes Federation, stated before the Mandal Commission that casteism was rampant in West Bengal
with inter-caste marriages being rare occurrences. He also pointed out that there had been little
improvement in the living standard of the castes categorized as backward by the Kaka Kalelkar
Commission. Gour Mohan Shar, General Secretary, West Bengal Swarnakar Sabha also opposed the
view that there were only two castes, that is, the rich and the poor noting that caste system is as deeply
entrenched in West Bengal as in other parts of the country (See Government of India, 1980, p. 49).
Furthermore, in 1991 Mandal Commission Action Committee headed by a senior Left Front Minister
and Chairman of the State Forward Bloc, Bhakti Bhusan Mandal claimed that at least 50% of the total
population of West Bengal belonged to the OBCs (Kushry, 1991, p. 419). However, the CPI (M) still
remained reluctant to agree to reservation on the basis of caste. This attitude of the party at the level of
political practice translated into the political strategy of the West Bengal Marxists to reject caste as a unit
of mobilization in favour of class.
Kohli (1983, p. 791) has pointed out that the CPI(M) followed clear a class-based mobilization
strategy. It attempted to mobilize the lower and lower-middle classes like the agricultural workers and
small and marginal farmers by claiming to represent their interests. Such a claim found manifestation in
Central Committee resolutions on Tasks on the Kisan Front (1967), Central Agrarian Issues (1973) and
the political resolution adopted at the Tenth Congress of the CPI(M) held in Jalandhar in April 1978.
However, over the years the ideological orientation of the CPI(M) gradually changed from
revolutionary to reformist direction (Kohli, 1990, p. 1997). The recognition that electoral calculations
had to be given prominence by abandoning theoretical orthodoxy gradually dawned upon the party.
Consequently, the CPI(M) did not focus its attention on the extreme lower rungs of the rural hierarchy.
It tried to build an all-inclusive alliance of rural classes minus the large landowners or jotedars. As a
result, the unity between the middle peasants on the one hand and agricultural labourers and sharecroppers
on the other hand was emphasized. Despite the fact that the agricultural labourers working on the land of
the relatively affluent rich and middle peasants routinely found themselves at loggerheads with the latter,
it was CPI(M)’s electoral agenda to keep both employers and workers on their side. In the process, the
party in rural areas ultimately came to be dominated by none other than the middle peasants (Basu, 2001;
Rogaly, 1998).
The term ‘middle class peasant’ generally refers to middle and rich peasants whose status and position
in society are largely derived from their relatively large landholdings, their high ritual status, their often
most non-manual work and lifestyle or from an accepted claim to such status (Ruud, 1994, p. 360). They
mostly belong to the middle peasant castes such as Sadgop, Aguri, Mahishya and even some upwardly
mobile lower castes such as Namasudras (Echeverri-Gent, 1992, p. 1411; Kohli, 1997, p. 339). Thus, the
rural middle classes or middle peasants own fair amount of land and they in most cases belong to
intermediate castes.
The political strategy of building multi-class rural alliance exhibited a clear bias in favour of the
middle peasants. Such bias got reflected in the neglect of the interests of agricultural labourers. No
separate organization was set up for the agricultural workers within the West Bengal Kisan Sabha despite
the formation of such an organization within the All India Kisan Sabha in 1981. The reason for this lay
in the political needs to protect the interests of the middle peasantry who deployed hired labour to get
their land cultivated.
However, the Left Front also needed to prevent alienation of marginal farmers, sharecroppers and
agricultural workers. The most volatile issue that often exposed conflict of interests between the
landholding peasants and their hired agricultural labourers was the rate of wage.4 Under such
circumstances, the party in order to maintain its pro-poor image must be seen to be waging a struggle in
Guha 55

favour of the agricultural workers. But unlike earlier times, the party was now in power and therefore, it
had to ensure that such struggle contributed to raising of class consciousness in the direction of party’s
interests without disrupting the general political stability of the countryside and without alienating the
support of the influential middle peasants. As a result, such struggle ultimately ended in negotiation-
oriented consensus politics at the behest of the party. In this context, Bhattacharyya (1999) has argued
that the ‘CPI(M) excelled in what may be regarded as the “politics of middleness”, a consensus-evoking
unifying politics of meditation between several sectional interests’. Giving an example of such politics
in a village, he observed that every wage negotiation started with a strike. The agricultural labourers
usually demanded a rate which the party fixed for them. The party regarded such strikes as manifestations
of class struggle against the landowners. The landowners usually agreed at the end of the negotiation to
raise the wage up to a rate lower than the official rate with the full consent of the party. The workers
ended their strike and resumed their work with a sense of gratitude towards the party. With the help of
such ‘politics of mediation’, a united peasant alliance was maintained. This kept the magnitude of the
anti-party forces sufficiently low.
Furthermore, during land redistribution and land seizure, only landlords were targeted while middle
peasants were left off the hook. Rather, in the initial phase of land grab movement, middle and small
peasants and agricultural labourers fought unitedly against the big landowners or so-called jotedars, their
common enemy and therefore, their united front was given an oppositional identity. There is little
unanimity regarding the meaning of the term jotedar among the scholars. One meaning of the term is
substantial farmer. Such a meaning has emerged from District Gazetteers of North Bengal districts in
colonial times and accounts of colonial officials (see Buchanan-Hamilton, 1833; O’Malley, 1907,
pp. 147–148). According to Ray and Ray (1975), in villages beyond their residence the zamindars had
little control over the cultivable lands and effective control over land at the village level was wielded by
a dominant class of village landholders, popularly referred to as jotedars. They held huge tracts of village
land and got them cultivated by sharecroppers and agricultural labourers. However, colonial accounts of
other districts portray jotedars simply as tenants (O’Malley, 1908, p. 102; Peterson, 1910, p. 155).
Therefore, it has been pointed out that powerful jotedars capable of competing with or even surpassing
the authority of the zamindars, was not a universal phenomenon and remained confined mostly to the
frontier areas in North Bengal and parts of the 24 Parganas newly brought under cultivation (Bose, 2008,
pp. 3–33; Chatterjee, 2002, p. 58). Therefore, there are local variations in the usage of the term. Even in
some villages of Bardhaman district, the term jotedar is used to refer to the sharecroppers. However, in
contemporary political discourse, jotedar has become an undifferentiated social category indicative of
large landowners. The leftist political strategy had a role in shaping the popular conception of the term
jotedar.
Though the jotedar was not a homogenous social or economic category, the term jotedar was made
synonymous with large landowners in late 1960s in the political discourse promoted by the leftists. The
jotedars were endowed with the unity of a class possessing more or less similar interests and economic
capabilities. This was done keeping in mind the objective of mobilizing a large segment of rural
population and raising their class consciousness by projecting before them a common class enemy called
jotedars (Betellie, 1974). In this background, the multi-class alliance was justified on the ground that
unity among all categories of peasants was the only way through which ‘struggles are won, by isolating
the main enemy, by splitting the main enemy, by splitting the ranks of the opposing vested interests, and
dealing with them one at a time, and by always trying to keep the majority in the rural society on the side
of those struggling through these united fronts’ (Dasgupta, 1984b, p. 146). In this way, the inclusive
category of peasant class was discovered as a unit of electoral mobilization, and the entire mobilization
pattern was given a class-oriented direction. In this context, the electoral rhetoric exclusively focused on
56 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

the problems of the broad category of proletarian class within which the Dalits were accommodated
either as landless labourers or poor workers. In such a political scenario, caste identity did not matter
much. The lower castes saw themselves primarily as peasants and not as Dalits. Ruud (1999) has pointed
out that the left parties put before the rural masses the desired chasi (peasant) way of life, the chasi
model. The chasi lifestyle was modelled upon the bhadralok values which called for greater sexual
restraint, cleanliness in dress, refinement in manners, greater engagement with the culture of learning
and abandonment of moral vices like drinking. Thus, the peasant identity became the locus of conscious
identification for the ritually pure middle farmers as well as Dalit agricultural workers and provided
them an orientation to act together out of supposedly common economic interests.
Thus, the CPI(M) maintained a multi-class peasant alliance in which the ritually pure middle peasants
clearly dictated the terms. Since the middle peasants mostly belonged to the intermediate castes, the
strategy of empowering the middle peasants ended up benefitting the intermediate castes more than
others. Does this mean that the political mobilization strategy of the CPI(M) was motivated by some
caste bias? However, there is little to suggest that there was any upper caste conspiracy dictating its
political agenda. The primary motive behind the middle peasant orientation of the multi-class rural social
coalition of the CPI(M) was political. The party simply acted in conformity with its political interests of
broadening its support base. It was the political potential of the middle peasantry which enabled this
section of the rural populace to gain favourable treatment from the party. Harekrishna Konar (2015),
known to be a radical voice within the Party, recognizing the importance of the support of relatively
well-off and better-educated middle peasantry wrote: ‘As the combination of monopoly capital and
feudalism aided by imperialism is a formidable force, the number of enemies must be kept to the
minimum as far as practicable. So the middle peasants must be made a close ally, otherwise our strength
will sag.’ This understanding mainly came from the recognition that the middle peasants constituted a
numerically significant group in the rural areas. Dasgupta (1984a, p. 91) has estimated that numerically
they account for 15% to 20% of the population in many villages, unlike the richer section which would
generally amount to 3% to 5%. Moreover, the middle peasants generally remain in close proximity with
the poorer sections both physically and psychologically, and by virtue of this proximity they often wield
considerable influence on the political opinions of their dependent sharecroppers and the landless
labourers. The relatively higher social status of the middle peasants also place them in a favourable
position to command respect and support from those at the bottom of the social hierarchy (Echeverri-
Gent, 1992, p. 1411). It is, therefore, easier for the political parties to reach out to the rural masses
through the leadership of the relatively affluent, politically articulate and socially aware middle peasants.
Thus, in the political mobilization strategy of the Left Front, the middle and rich peasants had an
important political role. General Secretary of the CPI(M) from 1992–2004, Harkishan Singh Surajeet
(2000) stated quite unequivocally, ‘the poor peasants are the most trustworthy ally of the working class
in the people’s democratic revolution while the middle peasants too have an important role to play in this
revolution. Then there remains the strata of rich peasants who, because of their position in the system of
production, are inclined to gravitate towards the class of landlords. Yet, to write off the rich peasants
would be a mistake and against the interests of the revolution. Our Party, the CPI(M), has thoroughly
debated this question and come to the correct conclusion that the rich peasants, though they remain a
vacillating section, can be won over to the side of the working class at certain junctures.’ The importance
given to the middle peasants could also be attributed to the fact that they were also in a better position to
deal with government officials mostly belonging to similar social and caste backgrounds. Above all, they
were better educated than the poor rural masses. Therefore, they were considered better equipped to
perform leadership functions. Similarly Binoy Chowdhury, a highly respected CPI(M) Kisan Sabha
leader said, ‘These middle peasants, they are educated, they are vocal; so they would sometimes lead,
Guha 57

due to certain traditions. They enjoyed more clout with the local people who are mostly illiterate’ (cited
in Ruud, 1994, p. 374).
As a result, with the political rise of the CPI (M), institutional power in rural society shifted not from
the higher to the lower classes such as sharecroppers or landless farmers, but from the former to an
in-between group belonging to middle peasant backgrounds or to such petty bourgeois background as
teaching. In Kohli’s survey (2006, pp. 111–113) conducted in the districts of Burdwan and Midnapore,
8.3% of Gram Panchayat members have less than 2 acres, 69% have 2–5 acres, 19.4% have 6–10 acres
and 2.8% have over 10 acres of land. None of them uses only family labour on their land. A total of
83.3% use hired labour and 16.7% use sharecroppers. Thus, the Panchayat leaders mostly belonged to
the middle castes. John Echeverri-Gent’s survey of Gram Panchayats in Midnapore district found that
middle castes accounted for 23 out of 36 Pradhans and 15 Pradhans came from the locally dominant
Mahisya caste (1992, p. 1411).
The reason for disproportionate importance given to the ritually pure middle peasants by the CPI(M)
was purely political. The support and the leadership role of the middle peasantry were deemed crucial for
the political success of the party. After the second consecutive victory of the Left Front, it was also
declared by the West Bengal unit of Kisan Sabha that the victory would have never been possible without
the support of an influential section of the middle peasants (See West Bengal Pradeshik Kisan Sabha,
1982, p. 122). This situation underwent some change after the enactment in 1992 of the 73rd Constitutional
Amendment Act which reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in
proportion to their population in Panchayat bodies. As a result, the numerical representation of the SCs
and STs in Panchayat bodies enhanced significantly. Social composition of Panchayat members elected
in the first Panchayat elections in 1993 after the enactment of 73rd Amendment Act and social composition
of Panchayat members elected in the last Panchayat elections held during the period left rule in 2008
presented, respectively, in Tables 1 and Table 2 show that since the enactment of 73rd Amendment Act,
SCs and STs have enjoyed proportionate representation in Panchayat bodies. Still, the lower-caste
Panchayat functionaries failed to act autonomously as the real power rested with the bhadralok dominated
party. A number of studies have reported that while making decisions the lower-caste Panchayat
functionaries were always controlled and guided by party leaders of higher social and ritual status
(See Acharya, 1993; Bhattacharyya, 2003; Roy, 2012). Thus, the increased political representation of the
lower castes did not result in their proportionate political empowerment since the real power remained
in the hands of ritually pure middle peasants. Thus, the dominance of the rural middle classes belonging
mostly to intermediate castes remained unscathed.
Thus, in the rural areas CPI (M) promoted the interest of the middle peasants. In this respect, the
class-based mobilization strategy of the CPI(M) may apparently seem similar to the peasant politics

Table 1. Social Composition of Panchayat Members Elected in 1993 in West Bengal

Gram Panchayats Panchayat Samitis Zilla Parishads

SC Women 14.4 14.5 13.3
SC Men 24.1 23.3 24.5
Total SCs 38.5 39.8 37.8
ST Women 3.0 3.2 3.2
ST Men 4.4 3.9 3.8
Total STs 7.4 7.1 7.0
Total Women 35.5 34.6 36.1
Source: Government of West Bengal (2004, p. 63).
Note: SC, Scheduled Caste; ST, Scheduled Tribe.
58 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

Table 2. Social Composition of Panchayat Members Elected in 2008 in West Bengal

Gram Panchayats Panchayat Samitis Zilla Parishads Total

SC 35.86 35.39 34.40 4.26
ST 8.52 8.21 8.52 8.47
Muslim 5.74 5.60 4.26 5.70
General Hindu 25.94 27.86 32.57 26.35
Muslims 23.38 22.41 19.63 23.17
Other Minorities 0.56 0.53 0.61 0.55
Source: Information on West Bengal Panchayats, their members and functionaries (2010, p. 114). https://rcwb.in/rcwb/wp-
content/uploads/2012/07/24.-Panchayats-in-West-Bengal-at-a-Glance.pdf
Note: SC, Scheduled Caste; ST, Scheduled Tribe.

of Charan Singh in Uttar Pradesh. Jaffrelot (2000) has pointed out that Charan Singh tried to subsume
caste identities into a feeling of class or at least into one of a peasant movement. But this strategy was,
to a great extent, determined by caste considerations. Charan Singh claimed to represent the interests
of the land-owning peasants by forming a multi-caste alliance of Ahirs, Jats, Gujjars and Rajputs
(known as AJGAR) who were relatively well-off landowning peasants. However, the main purpose
was to push forward the interests of the Jats and place them on a dominant position vis-à-vis other
castes. But the Jats consisted only 1.2% of the population of the state and on their own they were in
no position to play any meaningful political role. Therefore, to promote the interest of the Jats, Charan
Singh had to work through a multi-class alliance and class idioms of Kisan (peasant) politics were
invoked to bring landowning castes on a single platform. Thus, caste dynamics remained hidden in
class politics. However, this was not the case in West Bengal. While Charan Singh was himself a Jat,
the higher organs of the party and government in West Bengal were dominated by upper castes, not
intermediate castes. While many Panchayat functionaries and party leaders at the rural level have
come from the intermediate castes, the higher organs of the party and the government have remained
dominated by the upper castes. As already pointed out, almost invariably they belong to the three
upper castes—Brahman, Kayastha and Vaidya. They have enjoyed representation disproportionately
higher than their demographic strength in higher organs of the party and Council of Ministers while
the representation of the intermediate castes has miserably fallen below their demographic weight
quite consistently.
Thus, while the middle peasantry remained dominant in the countryside, it does not mean that party
was a mere instrument in their hands. Through the model of democratic centralism, the state-level
CPI(M) leadership belonging mostly to Hindu bhadralok middle class possessed the main controlling
power within the party. This means that the party itself had power which was disassociated from its
class character (Rogaly, 1998, p. 2731). As a result, the dominance of the intermediate castes at the
village level did not automatically translate into dominance of middle peasant castes over state politics.
The intermediate peasant castes could not assert themselves in state politics. This is because there was
little affinity between the caste background of the state-level party leaders and that of the middle
peasants who were in control of the village politics. While the former overwhelmingly belonged to the
higher castes, the latter mostly came from intermediate castes. In such a scenario, it is difficult to see
any caste sentiments working in favour of middle peasant orientation of the upper-caste dominated
party in rural areas. The middle peasant orientation of the party in rural society resulted out of purely
political calculations. Therefore, the political mobilization strategy of the Left Front needs to be
understood through the prism of realpolitik giving up speculative assumptions about upper-caste
conspiracy.
Guha 59

Agrarian Reform and Caste Question

Agrarian reform was the most important political agenda of the Left Front, and land reform was placed
at the crucial core of the agrarian programme of the Left Front. Land reforms in West Bengal had two
dimensions, barga and patta. The former, famously known as Operation Barga, called for registration of
sharecroppers and grant of security to the sharecroppers from arbitrary eviction. The latter type of reform
or patta involved acquisition of ceiling surplus land and their redistribution among the landless farmers.
Taken together, barga and patta covered 41.3% of the rural population of West Bengal up to 2002
(Government of West Bengal, 2004, p. 34). A substantial number of beneficiaries belonged to socially
deprived sections, Dalits and Adivasis. Up to 2002, SCs accounted for 30.5% of the registered
sharecroppers and 37.1% of pattadars. The corresponding figures for the STs are 11% and 19.3%,
respectively (Government of West Bengal, 2004, p. 35). Till 30 November 2006 of all pattadars, 37.41%
were Dalits and 18.57% were Adivasis (Government of West Bengal, 2007, p. 103).
An analysis of available data points out that the land distribution initiative was far more significant
in terms of the number of households that were recipients of land, rather than total quantum of
distributed land. A large field survey carried out in 89 villages spread across 15 districts of the state
has reported that while only 4% of cultivable land was distributed, almost 15% of total households or
one in every three landless households received some land (Bardhan & Mookherjee, 2004, p. 967).
Most beneficiaries obtained small plots less than one acre in size, substantially below average size of
holding (Mallick, 2008, p. 44). West Bengal Development Report, 2010 (p. 49) notes that West Bengal
accounts for the highest incidence of marginalization of landholdings among the major agricultural
producing states in India. The report attributes the higher incidence of landholdings in the marginal
class to land reforms and mounting demographic pressures on land. Around three-fourths of the
additional households in the smaller size category is accounted for by new landowners (beneficiaries
of land reforms) and the rest by the rate of growth of the rural population (Lieten, 1990, p. 2268).
Therefore, one important effect of land reform was rapid proliferation of marginal holdings
(see Table 3). A considerably large number of rural households came to possess land but the size of
new holdings was too small to be economically viable. By June 1990, 3.64 lakh hectares of surplus
agricultural land was distributed among 18.91 lakh families. Average land area allotted per beneficiary
turned out to be 0.192 hectare (Ghosh, 1998, p. 2989).
Lieten (1990) has pointed out that there was limited prospect of recovering excess land in West
Bengal. The number of large landholdings was few. The average size of holding was much smaller
compared to other states. Therefore, the only available option was to distribute the vested land among as
many families as possible so as to enable them to ‘walk on two legs’. However, the fact remains that the
option of lowering the land ceiling in order to maximize the average land area per beneficiary was not
explored. West Bengal Land Reforms (Amendment) Act 1972 passed by the Congress Government

Table 3. Percentage Distribution of Households for Different Size Category of Ownership Holdings
in West Bengal

Year Marginal Small Semi-Medium Medium Large

2003 92.06 5.70 1.40 0.20 0.00
1992 85.88 9.48 3.94 0.71 0.00
1982 81.60 11.50 5.54 1.28 0.08
1971–1972 77.62 12.64 7.30 2.39 0.05
Source: National Sample Survey Organization (December 2003–January 2004). Household ownership holdings in India (59th Round,
Report No. 491. Government of India, p. 19).
60 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

Table 4. Growth Rate of Food Grains

Period Production Yield Area

1981–1990 6.9 5.7 1.2
1991–2006 2.1 1.6 0.5
Source: West Bengal Development Report (2010, p. 46).

enforced the ceiling on the basis of a family of five members: 12.36 acres (five standard hectares) of
irrigated land or 17.30 acres of non-irrigated land. The Left Front after coming to power in 1977 did not
lower the ceiling amount which would have made more land available for redistribution (Khasnabis,
2009, p. 105). Ross Mallick (2008, p. 39) has estimated that acquisition of land over 5 acres would
provide 44% of cultivable land for redistribution and would provide positive gains to 87% of agricultural
households. This step would, therefore, enable the government to provide land with ownership rights to
the tenants or bargadars. However, land ceiling was not lowered as such a step would inevitably hit the
interests of the relatively affluent sections of the peasantry. In other words, further redistribution would
adversely affect the members of the Panchayat and Kisan Sabha who mostly owned middle-sized
holdings and used sharecroppers and agricultural workers to get their land cultivated.
Due to small size, a large number of landholdings turned out to be economically non-viable. Meagre
incomes from these small holdings were unable to support high-input prices, and fluctuating and unstable
output prices. Small farms also could not afford new production inputs and irrigation techniques (Rawal
& Swaminathan, 1998, p. 2598). The increasing non-profitability of agriculture got reflected in declining
agricultural growth rate (see Table 4).
These negative economic consequences of land reform produced important political effects. The
proliferation of marginal farms made the cultivators dependent on the party for continued patronage.
Small cultivators value public subsidies, loans and agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, irrigation
water more than their affluent counterparts, and for the supply of these they came to depend upon the
Panchayats effectively controlled by the party. Similarly, a large number of the tenants or bargadars
registered through Operation Barga also remained dependent on the Panchayats for necessary items and
inputs required for cultivation. Earlier, the bargadars used to receive production advances from the
landowners before starting the cultivation work. As barga registration led to deterioration of the
relationship between the bargadars and landowners, the latter stopped the supply of production advances
and other supports (Rudra, 1981, p. 65). Left without the support from the traditional patrons, the
bargadars had little option to turn to the party for such patronage, which is necessary in order to carry
on their livelihood activities. The survey undertaken by Bardhan and Mookherjee (2012, p. 19) has
attributed the continuing political support for the Left Front to the disbursal of recurring benefits rather
than more significant one-time benefits such as land title or housing. This suggests the prevalence of a
patron–client relationship in rural areas between the party and the rural masses.
On the other hand, non-profitability of agriculture provided an impetus to steady movement of labour
towards non-agricultural sector (see Table 5). But, the industrial scenario also remained bleak.

Table 5. Occupational Diversity in Rural West Bengal (in Percentage)

Occupational Group 1991 2001

Cultivators 38.4 25.4
Agricultural Workers 32.3 33
Non-agricultural Workers 29.3 41.6
Source: Census 1991 and Census 2001 [Collected from Sarkar (2006, p. 343)].
Guha 61

Table 6. Number of Manufacturing Enterprises in Unorganized Sector

Year West Bengal Uttar Pradesh

1994–1995 1,909,000 2,514,800
2000–2001 2,771,100 2,290,100
2005–2006 2,752,793 2,359,375
Source: National Sample Survey Organization (2005–2006). Operational characteristics of unorganized manufacturing enterprises in
India (62nd Round, Report No. 524. Government of India, p. 18) and Khasnabis (2009, p. 109).

Consequently, there occurred constant influx of labour in unorganized sector leading to steady
informalization of the economy (Khasnabis, 2009, p. 110). West Bengal steadily overtook Uttar Pradesh
to become the state with highest number of manufacturing units in unorganized sector with largest
number of people employed in them (see Table 6). Chatterjee (2004, 2008) has shown that those working
in the informal economy always have to seek the patronage of the political parties for performing their
subsistence activities. This is because the workers in the unorganized sectors such as hawkers and
rickshaw pullers don’t possess of any legally defined rights to conduct their livelihood activities and
their operations often require bypassing of rules and laws with the tacit complicity of the government.
Hence, informalization of economy made the masses increasingly dependent on the party leading to
increasing control of the party over people’s lives (Sarkar, 2006). As a large number of the SCs and the
STs were the primary beneficiaries of Operation Barga and recipients of small holdings, it is quite likely
that they bore the brunt of the negative effects of agrarian development programmes such as
informalization of labour and non-profitability of agricultural holdings. The ultimate outcome was a
growing dependence on those in power for livelihood. Faced with uncertainties of work in informal
sector and declining livelihood prospects in agricultural sector, the poor masses became increasingly
dependent on the party for various kinds of support and patronage. This dependence became a political
resource to be used and exploited by political parties to their own advantage. A large survey of 2,400
households spread across 88 villages of the state undertaken between 2003 and 2005 has reported that
the SCs and STs received substantial benefits from the Panchayats. As a result, they preferred to vote for
the Left Front candidates (Bardhan et al., 2009). Thus, political patronage came at the cost of unflinching
allegiance to the party.
Riding on massive dependence of the rural masses on the party for livelihood and continuous
patronage, the party gradually came to monopolize every inch of social space curbing the autonomy of
the communities. Social institution from caste councils and religious bodies to schools, sporting clubs
and traders’ associations were either eliminated or subordinated to the overarching authority of the party
(Chatterjee, 2009, 43). In other words, the party took over the social role of traditional institutions like
caste and religion, rendering these social identities politically insignificant. In such a situation, political
allegiance gained unquestionable priority over caste and community loyalties. Consequently,
political assertion on the basis of caste was ruled out of the realm of possibility. In other words, the
Dalit political agency got silenced.
But such entrenchment of patron–client relationship between the party and the poor, which
contributed to the silencing of the Dalit political agency, was not something that was deliberately
planned and put into effect. It was an unforeseen and unintended by-product of agrarian development
policy undertaken for the purpose of economic upliftment of the rural masses and consolidation of
political support base. In other words, the non-articulation of caste interests in politics was an
unanticipated and rather accidental consequence of actions driven by political and developmental
considerations.
62 Contemporary Voice of Dalit 13(1)

Conclusion
This article has considered in some detail the speculative claim that the disappearance of caste question
from public discourse during the long left rule in West Bengal was a result of conscious upper-caste ploy
to silence articulation of caste interests and tactfully eliminate the possibility of Dalit political assertion.
To verify the veracity of this claim, this study has critically scrutinized the political mobilization strategy
of the rural population adopted by the Left Front and also its landmark land reform programme. The
analysis of the political mobilization strategy has revealed that the policy of building a united peasant
alliance based on clear prioritization of the interests of the relatively affluent sections of the peasantry
was clearly influenced by hardcore political and electoral calculations rather than any caste prejudice.
However, this political strategy strengthened peasant consciousness among the rural masses relegating
caste consciousness to the background. On the other hand, the agrarian reform initiatives faced some
handicaps due to the political strategy of privileging the interests of the middle peasants over those of the
rural poor. The resultant drawback in the form of lack of self-sufficiency of the newly created small
farms prompted the party to assume an interventionist role contributing to the further marginalization of
caste and communal identities. However, the increasing dependence of the people on the party for
livelihood partly caused by the drawbacks of the land reform programme was by no means a targeted end
of conscious upper-caste agenda. It was an unforeseen and unintended by-product of an imperfect
agrarian development programme.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes
1. Bhadralok has been described both as a status group and a social class. According to Broomfield (1968),
Bhadralok is a status group in a Weberian sense since the most important attribute of this group is social honour.
Being a bhadralok is more about maintenance of certain values and observance of certain social properties.
Bhadralok value system and bhadralok mode of social behaviour are generally equated with fondness for intel-
lectual activities, keenness to attain higher education, non-engagement in and aversion for manual labour, sophis-
ticated speech, etiquette and lifestyle and preference for refined cultural and artistic traits. S. N Mukherjee (1977)
has described the bhadralok as a social class, generally equating it with middle class. The Marxist category of
class for him is an inclusive one and it denotes a combination of ‘economic power, market chances, occupational
prestige and style of life’ as well as the consciousness on the part of its members of their separate existence and
exclusiveness from other social groups. Sumit Sarkar (1985, 2013) and Bidyut Chakraborty (1990) have also
identified bhadralok with middle class.
2. For a detailed factual analysis of bhadralok domination of higher institutions of power, see Lama-Rewal (2009).
3. Caste has remained a contentious issue for the Marxists. The dominant tendency has been to treat it as a part of
superstructure bereft of material content and therefore a function of class relations (For a theoretical treatment
of this position, see Bandyopadhyaya, 2002; Gupta, 1980; Ranadive, 1991). It has also been argued by some
Marxist scholars that caste is basically the Indian form of material relations at the base and therefore is the Indian
version of class (See Omvedt, 1982). However, it is the first approach which has clearly gained primacy in aca-
demic debates and political discourse among the Marxists.
Guha 63

4. Various field studies have routinely pointed out that casual labour hiring is quite extensive among medium- and
small farmers, particularly because of the tendency of farmers belonging to ritually pure caste groups to avoid
manual labour on grounds of custom, caste status and so on (for instance, see Bardhan & Rudra, 1980, 1943).

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