By 2005, it was becoming increasingly clear that one must be a slave (chamcha or courtier for flattery) in the land of democratically elected government in West Bengal or be prepared to lead a life as secong-grade citizens subject to oppression by dictatorial whims of the democratically elected government and the ruking political party. This was all the more true in the case of learned and talented persons of which there was no dearth in West Bengal given the accepted defnition of learned person adopted by West Bengal. After, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya became Chief Minister for the second term, any person who would like to remain connected to cultural activities (mainly, film fare, book fair, singing, concert, theatre and stage acting, dance performance, local TV channel operation and TV programming, game of cricket, etc, had only one choice: accept Buddhadev Bhattacharyya as the Father of Bengali culture and please him with wahtever he wants the person to do or forget being involved in culture or cricket. The choice was between slavery and freedom. The tremedous growth in the size of the learned persons however meant that the Governments favors would get thinly distributed over a larger number of slaves. Those 'lerned slaves who enjoyed favor for some years had to remain unfavoured slaves for a while so that other slaves can get a chance to enjoy State favor. Some learned or talented persons who had benefited earlier found that the economics of slavery unattractive. Suddenly they realiszed that it would be far more economic to break the chain of slavvery and support the oppostion political party.
They worked out an alternative scheme. They would now start criticising the ruling party and the Government while supporting the opposition party. The opposition party was only too happy to provide them support for their newly created forum of civil societty in exchange political protection. Once you are close to some top leaders of the opposition parties, the ruling party and the Government find it difficult to harras you much.
One by one, a number of prominent, rather popular stage and film actors, painter/ sculpturer, novelists and writers, singers, economits, historians, social scientistsnewspaper editor/ columnist, human rights activists, environmentalists, lawyers and others became vocal in condemning various oppressive acts of the Government and the ruling party. All these men and women were left-oriented and remain so even now but was unable to tolerate the CPM dictatorship over their professional lives. They are openly favoring Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress to win the next elections in West Bengal and comwe to power in the state in 2011. But these learned community as yet limited membership and largely reluctant to be identified with any ideology of any political party. They want their freedom back through their movement for civil society.
The larger group of learned men have either become aloof or are keeping mum and keeping their fingers crossed over a possible change in West Bengal's political regime. Some others are of course either committed communists or unable to discontinue CPM flattery in the interest of their business.
Learned Community in West Bengal will never get back their glories: India is not a place for talented persons with desire for individual freedom and West Bengal is unlikely to cultivate talents in any case.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Intelligentia to Intellectualism to Learned Society
Now West Bengal has a divided Learned Community (they use the term 'Biddwajon' now rather than Buddhijeebee). This Learned Community, rather communities, replaced the earlier Intellectual Community that existed prior to 1970s. Intellectualism in West Bengal however had earlier replaced the Intelligentia community of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth centuries. Prior to that it had been the rule of Pundit Community. These communities - Pundits, the Intelligent, the Intellectuals and the now Learned- shares a common trait: their perceived superiority over other Bengalis in terms of their brain.
Before the British came, for quite a long period, the Sanskrit Brahmin Pundits framed the rules for the society. They were the repositories of all knowledge: only men conversant with valuable knowledge scripted in Sanskrit in the holy scriptures, grammar, epics and literature, ayurveda (medicine), number counting, astronomy, astrology and Kamasutra (sexology): women were seldom allowed to be educated. The pundits did not have much knowledge about technology and manufacturing: this knowledge was with the people who were treated as lower caste in the social system by the Pundits, and were called Kamars (who bent and melted iron in the hearths and fabricated iron or metalic utensils, tools, agricultural implements, weapons and the like), the Kumors (who tirned earten clay into utensils, toys, idols and the like), the Majhis (who knew how to deal with boats in the river), the Tanttis (who knew how to spin yarn from cotton and then weave cloth), the Majhis (who knew how ro give boat rides acroos rivers even during storms), the Chutors (carpentaers who knew how to make wooden implements, cart wheels and furniture), the Shaykras (who fabricated golden and silver jwelleries), the Kolu-Telis (who knew how to extract edible oil from various seeds) and the like.
Many of the Brahmins with knowledge of the scriptures, literature, astrology and medicine were considered outcast because they had been treating poor patients from lower castes in distant places by visiting their homes.
The Learned Pundits were apparently very useful to the Bengali society: they claimed that they knew about God and were God's special emmissaries, besides being trustworthy and capble managers of the estate and accounts of the rulers and adviser-cum-administrator cum controller of the rulers' subjects. Sometimes they were also rulers themselves. If one is a desecdant of a Brahmin family, he would autmatically be recognised as a Pundit and normally he would at least know the following: Sanskrit language, Mantras for worshipping God, a bit of astrology and a magical power to cause a percieved danger to others by simply cursing them. It was the period of Dynastic Learned Community.
With the British rule spreading its tentacles from Bengal, rather Calcutta as the epicentre, the Pundits were soon in great trouble. Some Brahmins and non-Brahmins got employment in the British Government offices and commercial firms and soon English education would start. The young generations of the relatively affluent or educated families got the taste of the new ways of thinking about life and society; they got an exposure to the new areas of knowledge including modern science and the book-printing technology that the Portugese, the French and the British brought with them. These young minds exposed to the Western thoughts and knowledge of the universe and the society, would soon start questioning the authority of the traditional Pundits and their knowledge and wisdom. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chnadra Chattopadhyya, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudhan Dutta, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyya, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Achharya Prafulla Ghosh are some of the stalwarts of successive generations who represented the urge and ethos of freedom of knowledge and its applications. The traditional Bengali learned Pundit Community starded yielding slowly but surely the honorable place of Bengal's brain to the Wester- education exposed Inteegentia.
But all men and women were not part of the Intelligentia. The highly educated, talented persons were the core of the Intelligentia along with certain rich households who appreciated the Intelligentia and patronized them. The Bengali Bhadolok, however poor in gray cells, were also part of the Intelligentia if they had been able to effectively patronize or if they had been keen followers of the intelligent and learned stalwarts, some of whom emerged as leaders or pathfinders or institutions by themselves: they were accepted as social reformers, or recognised as great philosophers or scientist or poets or novelists. Both the intellectuals and the psedu-intellectuals along with their fans formed the Intelligentia until the 1920s and the 1930s.
After the first World War and as the British found it difficult to manage India as a colony, the Intellengtia started weakening. More Bengalis than there were available intelligent, talented and learned men and women, became impatient of being ignored as mere followers. They aspired to become leaders and be recognised as great. This led to the birth and growth of Intellectualism. The urban centres and Kolkkata in particular would soon become full of intellectualsd, it would be difficult to find a non-intellectual, non-learned resident in the city of Calcutta.
What did the Bengal Intellectual Community look like in the early 1950s to 1960s: the self appointed members of this group were mostly democratic, socialist minded, believed in the magical power of the State to do wonders in terms of economic properity, economic equity, social justice, building a bhadolok civil society. They were mostly in the profession of selling labor services to government and banks and other commercial firms, or politically conscious (!) factory workers, trade union activists, virtually all government officers and low profile comany executives in the public and private sectors, the doctors, engineers, and accountants who were involved in cultural activity clubs, the newspaper editors, columnists and reporters, the film makers and film artists, the actors and actors on the stage and in the movies, the script-writers and directors of movies and plays, the poets, the novelists, the sculptors, the painters and virtually all the politically conscious students, etc. This was a great inclusive period of Intellectuals slowly developins as a Learned Community. But there were exclusions of course. Who were not in the Learned Community? The businessmen- small or big, most of the top bossess of companies and industrialists, most of the students who performed well in studies and examinations, those who would go for higher studies abroad, the murders, crinminals, the domestioc / household servants, the village-based members of the richer agricultural households, the farmers and the rural manual laborers, the magicians, the palmists, the temple priests, the teachers who simply taught but had no influence over the people in the locality, the bus conductors and drivers unless they had become leaders of trade unions, and almost all scientists and technogists.
And, then came the most explosive era. The thirtyfive years between 1970-2004, especially after the CPM-led Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Government began their long-journey, Bengal saw the advent of Learned Commmunity replacing the Intellectualism: it has witnessed both inclusive and exclusive growth of West Bengal's brain. It became fashioable to become a member of this Learned Community rather than being a mere inteelectual: the criteria for inclusion was also made more popular for people to meet with. The minimum necessary qualification was simplified: anyone who can lecturer or discuss with others fluently at least in a mix of Bengali and English words but is a communist or has a leftist leaning or their active fans and supporter with some belief or faith in the terms like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, bourgeiose, surplus value, labor exploitation, dialectical materialism, class conflict, bandhs, gheraos, 'cholchena- cholbena' slogan, loyal or looking for favors from the State government, was given social acceptance as a member of the Learned Community. Learned Community members had at least one obligation: he/ she must participate in the debates and discussions on what is happening in West Bengal either at a tea-stall, or during a bus-jouney or at the party-fiice or while playing cards in the evening and attend political party meetings and rallies at least once in a year. This made it easier for a majority of the rural folk, the teachers, the criminals, the scientists, the technologists and even businessmen to become members of the Learned Community.
But there was always a distiction between high profile, elite learned members and ordinary learned members. The ordinary members of the learned community are the base of learned community: they must at least vote for the CPM or any of the left parties in the election to retain their membership of the Learned Community of West Bengal. So, between 39% to 47% of West Bengal citizens with voting rights became or retained their Learned Community Status after each Lok Shabha or Assembly (Bidhan Sabha) or Municipal or Panchyat elections. Those residents of the State who could not enrol their names in the Election Commsion lists, either because they were not allowed or because they were not yet 18 years old were of course Indian of non-learned background along with those who did not vote for the left. Now, nobody is a fool to check who has voted for whom. You need only to declare that you have voted for the CPM or the left or if you are underaged you must demonstarte your support to the CPM and the left. This simple method helped the membership of of the Learned Community to cross 50% of the population. West Bengal is the only State which can boast of more than half of its population with Learned Person Status.
What about the Elite class.? They seldom came to cast their votes in elections saying that they were busy with their urgent work. These are the highly talented people in education, sports, culture, medicine: they also included artists, painters, stage and cine actors and actresses, novelists, poets, columnists, TV anchors, experts in economics, sociology, political affairs, comparative literature and history, science and technology commentators, singers, film directors, businessmen, etc. Very busy people. They could not be expected to be party members or activists or voters. But if they chose to be a party members or supporter or activists, they would be welcome and given special attention as Elite Learned Person of West Bengal with various benefits like Committee positions etc. What about others who could not afford such close association with the CPM or the left? They have to attend functions organised by the CPM or the Government like book fairs, film fairs, cultural shows and share the platform with the CPM leaders. They are required to praise the CPM leaders and say something against the BJP and the Congress and the Trinamul Congress. They must be vocal about the poor status of minority communities and backward caste and tribes in the rest of Inmdia. They must praise the CPM led government for its great achievements in the field of education, social justice, law and order, electricity supply, agricultural and land reforms, memorandum of understanding with foreign and outside the state investors for investment in West Bengal, the grand success in the exyension of health services and the revolutionary panchayat raj. If they do all these they will not only get the official status of being a learned men but also enjoy state patronage for advertisements, sponsorship, land allotment, police support and the like. For long talented men and women were ignored by the society. This post-1980 scheme offered by the CPM party and government attracted all most all talented persons to join the lucrative scheme, though initially some had to struggle because some ministers thought that certain talents were inappropriate culture (Apo-Sanskriti) till the CPM defined apo-Sanskriti is one that is opposing CPM's policies and practices. The scheme was so attractive, even persons of dubious talents took the benefit just as the smart fly-by- night operators in certain businesses do: make money within a short period and vanish.
The process came to its height in the 2004 Assembly elections: CPM and the left sweeped the polls driving out all opposition parties as representatives of the Below the Learned Line citizens.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many learned persons of dubious quality in a society breeds disaster. Empty vessels sounds much. Fools live in Paradise. West Bengal had by that time reached the peak of incompetence in India. resembling the rule of the jungles where wild animals enjoy their lives.
Something had to give in. What? We explore next.
Before the British came, for quite a long period, the Sanskrit Brahmin Pundits framed the rules for the society. They were the repositories of all knowledge: only men conversant with valuable knowledge scripted in Sanskrit in the holy scriptures, grammar, epics and literature, ayurveda (medicine), number counting, astronomy, astrology and Kamasutra (sexology): women were seldom allowed to be educated. The pundits did not have much knowledge about technology and manufacturing: this knowledge was with the people who were treated as lower caste in the social system by the Pundits, and were called Kamars (who bent and melted iron in the hearths and fabricated iron or metalic utensils, tools, agricultural implements, weapons and the like), the Kumors (who tirned earten clay into utensils, toys, idols and the like), the Majhis (who knew how to deal with boats in the river), the Tanttis (who knew how to spin yarn from cotton and then weave cloth), the Majhis (who knew how ro give boat rides acroos rivers even during storms), the Chutors (carpentaers who knew how to make wooden implements, cart wheels and furniture), the Shaykras (who fabricated golden and silver jwelleries), the Kolu-Telis (who knew how to extract edible oil from various seeds) and the like.
Many of the Brahmins with knowledge of the scriptures, literature, astrology and medicine were considered outcast because they had been treating poor patients from lower castes in distant places by visiting their homes.
The Learned Pundits were apparently very useful to the Bengali society: they claimed that they knew about God and were God's special emmissaries, besides being trustworthy and capble managers of the estate and accounts of the rulers and adviser-cum-administrator cum controller of the rulers' subjects. Sometimes they were also rulers themselves. If one is a desecdant of a Brahmin family, he would autmatically be recognised as a Pundit and normally he would at least know the following: Sanskrit language, Mantras for worshipping God, a bit of astrology and a magical power to cause a percieved danger to others by simply cursing them. It was the period of Dynastic Learned Community.
With the British rule spreading its tentacles from Bengal, rather Calcutta as the epicentre, the Pundits were soon in great trouble. Some Brahmins and non-Brahmins got employment in the British Government offices and commercial firms and soon English education would start. The young generations of the relatively affluent or educated families got the taste of the new ways of thinking about life and society; they got an exposure to the new areas of knowledge including modern science and the book-printing technology that the Portugese, the French and the British brought with them. These young minds exposed to the Western thoughts and knowledge of the universe and the society, would soon start questioning the authority of the traditional Pundits and their knowledge and wisdom. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chnadra Chattopadhyya, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudhan Dutta, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyya, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Achharya Prafulla Ghosh are some of the stalwarts of successive generations who represented the urge and ethos of freedom of knowledge and its applications. The traditional Bengali learned Pundit Community starded yielding slowly but surely the honorable place of Bengal's brain to the Wester- education exposed Inteegentia.
But all men and women were not part of the Intelligentia. The highly educated, talented persons were the core of the Intelligentia along with certain rich households who appreciated the Intelligentia and patronized them. The Bengali Bhadolok, however poor in gray cells, were also part of the Intelligentia if they had been able to effectively patronize or if they had been keen followers of the intelligent and learned stalwarts, some of whom emerged as leaders or pathfinders or institutions by themselves: they were accepted as social reformers, or recognised as great philosophers or scientist or poets or novelists. Both the intellectuals and the psedu-intellectuals along with their fans formed the Intelligentia until the 1920s and the 1930s.
After the first World War and as the British found it difficult to manage India as a colony, the Intellengtia started weakening. More Bengalis than there were available intelligent, talented and learned men and women, became impatient of being ignored as mere followers. They aspired to become leaders and be recognised as great. This led to the birth and growth of Intellectualism. The urban centres and Kolkkata in particular would soon become full of intellectualsd, it would be difficult to find a non-intellectual, non-learned resident in the city of Calcutta.
What did the Bengal Intellectual Community look like in the early 1950s to 1960s: the self appointed members of this group were mostly democratic, socialist minded, believed in the magical power of the State to do wonders in terms of economic properity, economic equity, social justice, building a bhadolok civil society. They were mostly in the profession of selling labor services to government and banks and other commercial firms, or politically conscious (!) factory workers, trade union activists, virtually all government officers and low profile comany executives in the public and private sectors, the doctors, engineers, and accountants who were involved in cultural activity clubs, the newspaper editors, columnists and reporters, the film makers and film artists, the actors and actors on the stage and in the movies, the script-writers and directors of movies and plays, the poets, the novelists, the sculptors, the painters and virtually all the politically conscious students, etc. This was a great inclusive period of Intellectuals slowly developins as a Learned Community. But there were exclusions of course. Who were not in the Learned Community? The businessmen- small or big, most of the top bossess of companies and industrialists, most of the students who performed well in studies and examinations, those who would go for higher studies abroad, the murders, crinminals, the domestioc / household servants, the village-based members of the richer agricultural households, the farmers and the rural manual laborers, the magicians, the palmists, the temple priests, the teachers who simply taught but had no influence over the people in the locality, the bus conductors and drivers unless they had become leaders of trade unions, and almost all scientists and technogists.
And, then came the most explosive era. The thirtyfive years between 1970-2004, especially after the CPM-led Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Government began their long-journey, Bengal saw the advent of Learned Commmunity replacing the Intellectualism: it has witnessed both inclusive and exclusive growth of West Bengal's brain. It became fashioable to become a member of this Learned Community rather than being a mere inteelectual: the criteria for inclusion was also made more popular for people to meet with. The minimum necessary qualification was simplified: anyone who can lecturer or discuss with others fluently at least in a mix of Bengali and English words but is a communist or has a leftist leaning or their active fans and supporter with some belief or faith in the terms like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, bourgeiose, surplus value, labor exploitation, dialectical materialism, class conflict, bandhs, gheraos, 'cholchena- cholbena' slogan, loyal or looking for favors from the State government, was given social acceptance as a member of the Learned Community. Learned Community members had at least one obligation: he/ she must participate in the debates and discussions on what is happening in West Bengal either at a tea-stall, or during a bus-jouney or at the party-fiice or while playing cards in the evening and attend political party meetings and rallies at least once in a year. This made it easier for a majority of the rural folk, the teachers, the criminals, the scientists, the technologists and even businessmen to become members of the Learned Community.
But there was always a distiction between high profile, elite learned members and ordinary learned members. The ordinary members of the learned community are the base of learned community: they must at least vote for the CPM or any of the left parties in the election to retain their membership of the Learned Community of West Bengal. So, between 39% to 47% of West Bengal citizens with voting rights became or retained their Learned Community Status after each Lok Shabha or Assembly (Bidhan Sabha) or Municipal or Panchyat elections. Those residents of the State who could not enrol their names in the Election Commsion lists, either because they were not allowed or because they were not yet 18 years old were of course Indian of non-learned background along with those who did not vote for the left. Now, nobody is a fool to check who has voted for whom. You need only to declare that you have voted for the CPM or the left or if you are underaged you must demonstarte your support to the CPM and the left. This simple method helped the membership of of the Learned Community to cross 50% of the population. West Bengal is the only State which can boast of more than half of its population with Learned Person Status.
What about the Elite class.? They seldom came to cast their votes in elections saying that they were busy with their urgent work. These are the highly talented people in education, sports, culture, medicine: they also included artists, painters, stage and cine actors and actresses, novelists, poets, columnists, TV anchors, experts in economics, sociology, political affairs, comparative literature and history, science and technology commentators, singers, film directors, businessmen, etc. Very busy people. They could not be expected to be party members or activists or voters. But if they chose to be a party members or supporter or activists, they would be welcome and given special attention as Elite Learned Person of West Bengal with various benefits like Committee positions etc. What about others who could not afford such close association with the CPM or the left? They have to attend functions organised by the CPM or the Government like book fairs, film fairs, cultural shows and share the platform with the CPM leaders. They are required to praise the CPM leaders and say something against the BJP and the Congress and the Trinamul Congress. They must be vocal about the poor status of minority communities and backward caste and tribes in the rest of Inmdia. They must praise the CPM led government for its great achievements in the field of education, social justice, law and order, electricity supply, agricultural and land reforms, memorandum of understanding with foreign and outside the state investors for investment in West Bengal, the grand success in the exyension of health services and the revolutionary panchayat raj. If they do all these they will not only get the official status of being a learned men but also enjoy state patronage for advertisements, sponsorship, land allotment, police support and the like. For long talented men and women were ignored by the society. This post-1980 scheme offered by the CPM party and government attracted all most all talented persons to join the lucrative scheme, though initially some had to struggle because some ministers thought that certain talents were inappropriate culture (Apo-Sanskriti) till the CPM defined apo-Sanskriti is one that is opposing CPM's policies and practices. The scheme was so attractive, even persons of dubious talents took the benefit just as the smart fly-by- night operators in certain businesses do: make money within a short period and vanish.
The process came to its height in the 2004 Assembly elections: CPM and the left sweeped the polls driving out all opposition parties as representatives of the Below the Learned Line citizens.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many learned persons of dubious quality in a society breeds disaster. Empty vessels sounds much. Fools live in Paradise. West Bengal had by that time reached the peak of incompetence in India. resembling the rule of the jungles where wild animals enjoy their lives.
Something had to give in. What? We explore next.
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