Abstract
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the famous nineteenth-century Bengali polemicist, contended that the Bengalis lacked the physical as well as the mental stamina necessary to rise up against British colonial power in India. But he also argued that even if the Bengalis were weak and unfit, they could still emerge politically successful by employing inner strength of mind, or bahubal, which consisted of the qualities of initiative, unity, courage and perseverance.1 Bankim proved himself correct. As Ranajit Guha has shown, the vigorous anti-colonial movement of the bhadralok in the early twentieth century reflected the fact that the Bengali nation had at last acquired the quality of bahubal.2 However, the recent peasantization of the historiography of colonial Bengal raises issues with the categorical limit of Bankim’s bahubal. The restoration of peasant agency tells that the peasantry already possessed the chemistry of bahubal for which Bankim was waiting in the emerging nationalist frame. This was poignantly represented in the Faraizi movement, which forms the subject matter of this chapter.
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Notes
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, ‘Bangalir Bahubal’, in Prabandha Pustaka (Kantalpara, 1880), pp. 1–13. See also Anuradha Roy, Nationalism as a Poetic Discourse in Nineteenth Century Bengal (Calcutta, 2003), pp. 135–8.
Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge, MA, 1997), pp. 205–11.
For a sketch of the life and activities of Haji Shariatullah, see Muin-ud-Din Ahmad Khan, History of the Fara’idi Movement in Bengal, 1818–1906 (Karachi, 1965), pp. 1–22.
For an account of the superstitious practices surrounding childbirth, death, marriage and circumcision in contemporary Muslim society and the Faraizi efforts to eliminate them, see James Taylor, A Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca (Calcutta, 1840), p. 240; James Wise, Notes on the Races, Castes, and Trades of Eastern Bengal (London, 1883), pp. 21, 50; Khan, History of the Fara’idi, pp. lxxxvii–lxxxviii.
Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital. Rural Bengal since 1770 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 49, 148; To some extent, the condition might be compared to that of ‘agricultural involution’ in colonial Indonesia as described by Clifford Geertz. See his Agricultural Involution: the Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970).
Wise, Notes on the Races, pp. 21–2; for other notes on the Faraizi mobilization of the weavers, see Khan, History of the Fara’idi, p.116; C.A. Bayly, The Origins of Nationality in South Asia. Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi, 1998), p. 183.
Titu Mir was a peasant leader who enlisted significant support in waging resistance against the landlords and the Raj. After initial success, he died in a battle against a British-zamindar coalition in 1831. For a detailed discussion of Titu Mir’s life and his influence on subsequent peasant movements, see M.A. Khan, Titu Mir and his Followers in British Indian Records (Dacca, 1977); see also, M.A. Khan, ‘Faraizi movement’, in Sirajul Islam (ed.), Banglapedia (Dhaka, 2003).
Gastrell reported that on Shariatullah’s death his followers assembled, and by ‘common consent’ named Dudu Miyan as the head of the Faraizis. See G.E. Gastrell, Geographical and Statistical Report of the Districts of Jessore, Fureedpore and Backergunge (Calcutta, 1868), p. 36.
Muhibuddin Ahmad, Aposhhin ek sangrami pir Dudu Mia [An uncompromising saint leader Dudu Mia] (Dhaka, 1992), pp. 14–15.
Wise, Notes on the Races, p. 50; J.H. Kramers et al. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 784; P.M Holt et al. (eds), Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 76–7; Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, 1988), p. 722; Khan, ‘Fara’idi movement’, pp. 106–7.
IOR, V/27/144/8: The Petition of Bharut Chunder Roy, Mohurir of the Foujdaree Court of Fureedpore, Trial of Doodoo Meea and His followers 1847. Translation of proceedings held in two cases in 1847 before the session Judge of Dacca in which Doodoo Meea and his followers were tried [henceforth Trial of Doodo Meea] (Calcutta, 1848), p. 3.
Navinchandra Sen, Amar Jivan, in Shajinikanto Das (ed.), Navinchandra Rachanavali, vol. 2 (Calcutta, 1366 BS [1959 AD]), pp. 102–10; see also NAB, Dacca Divisional Report, 1880–81, file 120/1/2 B.G.P. Aug 1881; Khan, The ‘Fara’idi Movement’.
Isaac Allen, ‘The Revival of Islam’, The Calcutta Review (January, 1874): 47. In most cases, the Faraizis identified themselves as hanafi, sunni or sheikh to avoid any suspicion on the part of the government and therefore it became more difficult to identify them as a distinct community amongst the Muslims. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, government reports often described the Muslims of eastern Bengal as interchangeable with the Faraizis. Hunter reported in the late 1870s, for instance, that the Muslims of the district of Noakhali were nearly all Faraizis. In Comilla their number was ‘considerable’. In 1896 one government official reported that the Muslims of Chittagong were ‘all stern ferazi’. See W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, vol. IV (London, 1875), pp. 277, 383; NAB, Land Rev 1896, file: Aug 6/a/3 of 1896–7, nos. 56–8, bundle 41, list 17: W.B. Oldham, Comm of Chittagong to Secy to BoR, Lower Provinces, 6 Mar 1896.
About the Faraizi quest for autonomy and ‘independent statehood’, see Nurul H. Choudhury, Peasant Radicalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal: the Faraizi, Indigo and Pabna Movements (Dhaka, 2001), pp. 56–61; Bose, Peasant Labour, p. 151.
‘Faraizi Movement’ in Banglapedia. The Faraizi violated the legal institutions of the Raj in their everyday life. For instance, they thought that it was justified to give false witness before an English judge. While they considered that lying before a Muslim judge would draw punishment from God, they felt no such fear in lying before a non-Muslim judge. See N.H. Choudhury, Peasant Radicalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal: the Faraizi, Indigo and Pabna movements (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2001), p. 59; James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985), remains a classic work on the concept of agrarian ‘everyday resistance’.
Tauriq Ahmad Nizami, Muslim Political Thought and Activity in India during the First Half of the 19th Century (Aligarh, 1969), p. 82; see also J.C. Jack, Survey and Settlement of Bakarganj, pp. 242–45; Henry Beveridge, The District of Bakarganj: its History and Statistics (London, 1876), pp. 255–6; The Times, 7 October 1873, p. 9.
J. Wise, ‘The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1(3) (1894): 33; Nizami, Muslim Political Thought, pp. 83–4.
The Faraizi technique of mass mobilization is reflected in the using of Bengali puthi, rather than Persian, Arabic or Urdu language materials. See Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 20, 24.
Choudhury, Peasant Radicalism, pp. 67–8. For a discussion of the idea of the rich peasant as a mediating agency, see Rajat and Ratnalekha Ray, ‘Zamindars and Jotedars: a Study of Rural Politics in Bengal’, Modern Asian Studies, 9(1) (1975): 97–8.
For a Marxist approach to the Faraizi movement, see Narahari Kaviraj, Wahabi and Farazi Rebels of Bengal (New Delhi, 1982).
An example of the humane relationship between a peasant and his cattle is captured in a poignant Bangla short story. See Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, ‘Mahesh’, in Mushirul Hasan and M. Asaduddin (ed.), Image and Representation: Stories of Muslim Lives in India (Delhi, 2000).
Nobo Biswas, tahsildar of an indigo concern, testified against some prisoners in Nobo Biswas vs. Alum Biswas, Gopal Ghose et al., RIC, p. 267. For Hindu-Muslim cooperation in the indigo movement, see also Dina Bandhu Mitra, Nila darpana nataka (Calcutta, 1861).
R.C. Dutt, The Peasantry of Bengal, ed. Narahari Kaviraj (Calcutta, 1980). First published 1874.
Blair B. Kling, The Blue Mutiny: Indigo Disturbances in Bengal, 1859–1862 (Philadelphia, 1966), p. 61; See also David Hardiman, ‘Introduction’, in David Hardiman (ed.), Peasant Resistance in India (Delhi and Oxford, 1992), pp. 14–15.
James Wise, ‘The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1(3) (1894): 51.
IOR, P/238, Collection 14, no.26/27: A. Abercrombie, Comm of Dacca Div to Secy to GoB, Rev dept, 26 Nov 1873; IOR, P/238, Collection 14, no. 26/27: J.G. Charles, Offg Joint Magistrate of Munshighanj to Collector of Dacca, 19 Sept 1873. For a recent account of the background of conflicts between the reclaiming peasant and the landlord, see Sirajul Islam, ‘Permanent Settlement and Peasant Economy’, in Sirajul Islam (ed.), History of Bangladesh (Dhaka, 1997), pp. 278–80.
K.K. Sengupta, ‘Agrarian Disturbances in the 19th Century Bengal’, in A.R. Desai (ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (Bombay, 1979), pp. 189–90.
Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. V, p. 59; also note the quip about Pabna: ze ashe Pabna tar nei bhabna [‘whoever comes to Pabna nevermore suffers want’], See, L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer: Pabna (Calcutta, 1923), p. 31.
Dutt, The Peasantry of Bengal, p. xx.; for more recent notes on the Faraizi role in the Pabna movement, see Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Durham, 1999), p. 173; Hardiman, Peasant Resistance in India, p. 21.
Some diara surveys were carried out in the 1870s. But the cadastral survey that had started by the turn of the twentieth century truly ‘opened up’ the countryside. For a detailed discussion of the early colonial drive for exploring the physical landscape of India, see Matthew H. Edney, Mapping an Empire: the Geographical Construction of British India, 1765–1843 (Chicago, 1997). For an analysis of the relationship between the state power and scientific knowledge of the landscape, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed (New Haven and London, 1998).
For instance, by the turn of the century, the Khondker, a relatively superior Muslim group, had become averse to carrying any luggage, bags and the like on their heads or shoulders, cultivating their land by themselves and raising clothes beyond their knees. For notes on the ‘ashraf’s aversion to physical labour’, see Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: a Quest for Identity (Delhi, 1981), p. 11.
A.F.M. Abdul Hye, Adarsha Krishak [Model Peasant] (Mymensingh, 2nd edn, 1328 BS (1920 AD), preface.
Sheikh Abdus Sobhan, Hindu-Mosolman (Dacca, 1889); Muhammad Dad Ali, Samaj Siksha [Instructions on Society] (Nadia, 1910); Islam-Chitra O Samaj-Chitro [Sketches of Islam and the Muslim Society dealing with the present degenerate condition of the Muhammadans] (Mymensingh, 1914); Sufia Ahmed, Muslim Community in Bengal, 1884–1912 (Dacca: S. Ahmed; Distributed by Oxford University Press, Bangladesh, 1974); A.R. Mallick, British Policy and the Muslims in Bengal 1757–1856 (Dacca, 1977).
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Iqbal, I. (2010). The Political Ecology of the Peasant: the Faraizi Movement between Revolution and Passive Resistance. In: The Bengal Delta. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289819_4
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