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Agrarian Forms of Islam: Mofussil discourses on peasant religion in the Bengal delta during the 1920s*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2017
Abstract
During the 1920s, a new genre of didactic poems prescribing the proper Islamic practice of everyday peasant lives were published out of printing presses in deltaic, eastern Bengal's small towns. This article argues that these printed poems constituted a discourse of agrarian Islam that prescribed reforms in peasant material life—work, commerce, consumption, attire, hairstyle, and patriarchal authority—as a means of ensuring the viability of peasants’ market-based livelihoods. The article examines the emergence of a small-town Muslim intelligentsia that authored and financed the publications of these poems out of the Bengal delta's small-town printing industry. Eschewing communalism as an analytical frame in understanding South Asian Muslim identities, this article argues that Bengali peasant Muslim subjectivity was located in peasant engagements with agrarian markets. Agrarian Islamic texts urged Muslim cultivators to be good Muslims and good peasants, by working hard, reducing consumption, and balancing household budgets.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017
Footnotes
*
I would like to thank the following for having carefully read and commented upon various drafts of this article: Firdous Azim, Sugata Bose, Antoinette Burton, Ken Cuno, Behrooz Ghamari, Radhika Govindrajan, Simin Patel, Mark Steinberg, the attendees of the History Workshop at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the anonymous Modern Asian Studies reviewers for their suggestions, comments, and criticisms.
References
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3 My emphasis on the production and circulation of printed agrarian Islamic texts is indebted to Nile Green's analytical model of a ‘religious economy’ in the western Indian Ocean world. Green, N., Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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5 Omkar Goswami and Sugata Bose have both emphasized the importance of commodity markets to peasant economic wellbeing in the Bengal delta. Goswami, O., Industry, Trade and Peasant Society: The Jute Economy of Eastern India, 1900–1947, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991 Google Scholar; Bose, S., Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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18 Karmayogin, No. 27, 8 January 1910.
19 The catalogues of the Vernacular Tracts Collection at the British Library lists 32 books published in Noakhali during the 1920s. The Noakhali presses were the Noakhali Press and the Noakhali Mill Press, the latter of which was owned by a businessmen who owned an oil-pressing mill. These presses produced the following newspapers: the Desher Bani (circulation of 500), the Noakhali Sammilani (circulation of 200), and the Tanzeem (circulation of 300). The two Faridpur presses, the Ambica and Kamala presses, produced three newspapers—the Kangal (circulation 750), Krishi Katha (circulation 700), and the Chikandi Hitaishini (circulation 200). Among the small towns of eastern Bengal, more books were published in Mymensingh during the 1920s than anywhere else—the Vernacular Tracts Collection catalogue lists over 70 original texts published in Mymensingh in this period. The main Mymensingh newspaper, the Charu Mihir, is the only mofussil paper with a circulation of over 1,000. Statement of Newspapers and Periodicals Published in Bengal, revised up to 31st December, 1926, IOR/L/PJ/6/1762, File 4929, IOR.
20 A. Ahmed, Muslim Bani, Islamia Press, Comilla, Tippera, 1927, p. 1.
21 Statement of Newspapers and Periodicals Published in Bengal, revised up to 31st December 1926, IOR/L/PJ/6/1762, File 4929, IOR.
22 Government of Bengal, Report on the Working of the Reformed Constitution in Bengal, 1921–27, Part I: Calcutta, 1929, p. 8.
23 Karmayogin, No. 27, 8 January 1910.
24 S. A. Hamid, Krishak Bilap, Lily Press, Mymensingh, 1922.
25 A. Hossain, Bangla'r Bolshi, Islamia Press, Dacca, 1926. At the time of publication of this pamphlet, Abul Hussain was a lecturer at Dacca University but the articles in the book were written in the early 1920s when he was still a student. Fazlul Karim was a landlord in Dacca, who had purchased the estate of Haturia—60 miles from Dacca city—in 1919.
26 Hamid, Krishak Bilap, p. ii.
27 Hai, Adarsha Krishak, Mymensingh Zila Bhandar Press, Mymensingh, 1920, p. 33.
28 Ibid., p. 46
29 ‘Mussalman goney aaj dekhiya/Hai Hai bukta jai fatiya’, Aziz, Dunia O Akherat Do Jahaner Najat, p. 1.
30 ‘Kobita shuru kori paye dhori kandi koi/Bangali hoiya mora koto dukkho shoi’, Ahmed, Muslim Bani, p. 1.
31 ‘Ei jomanar loker astha dekhiya/Osthir hoinu dil gelo ghabriya/Khaite na pay mana bostro na gay/Dinek dui din onahare jay’, M. A. Ali, Keno Lok Gorib Hoy, Islamia Press, Comilla, 1917–18.
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34 Ahmed, Muslim Bani p. 11.
35 ‘Mathhay Albat rakha kemon baka mali'r chhat/Albatey toilo dite toilor porlo bat/Deshey napiter kachhay nahi boshey aar/Shohore dui anna diye chhatay baha bahar’, ibid., p. 7.
36 ‘Hindu ukil babu pailey babu pondo mari debo koshi/Nijer chhela murkho shala naila niray boshi’, ibid., p. 8.
37 ‘Je jati babsha banijyo chharilo/Duniya akherey tara dubilo’, Aziz, Dunia O Akherat Do Jahaner Najat, p. 21.
38 ‘Korite nahok lojja halal kam/Jei kore ghrina shei beiman’, ibid., p. 21.
39 ‘Dekho bhinno jati babosha koriya/Amaderi taka nei lutiya/Ei baboshar jorey tahara/holo probhu, deen honu amra’, ibid., p. 20.
40 Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth. Muslim texts in the Bengal delta often referred to Hindu gods, goddesses, and festivals, evidence against Asim Roy's and Pradip Datta's arguments that Bengali Muslim thought in the 1920s and 1930s was about purifying Islam and removing the taint of syncretism: Hossain, Bangla'r Bolshi, p. 45. The original lines in transliterated Bengali are below: ‘Bilat hoite dekho shetango shokol/Baboshar jorey korey Bharat dokhol/Aar dekho Bikaneri Marwari eshey/Banglar dhon rotno shob loy chushey/Pohela loiya ashey dhuti o kombol/Tarpor korey koto bishal shombol/Babshar jal petey Marwarigon/Rokto mangsho shushe loy nashiya jibon/Rokto shosha kaj shudhu ihaderi bhai/Obojh Bangali mora dishe nahi pai/Takar karoney mora kaka bole daki/Babu bole salam kori mathha niche rakhi/Tader nikote thaki jor hatey mora/Bujhe dekho kishe mora hoi Lakshmi chhara’, Hussain, A., Hok Kotha, Ahya Press, Sirajganj, 1933, p. 9 Google Scholar
41 ‘Koshtar majhete bhai shudhu dekhi churi/Kheyal koriya bujho joto noro nari’, ibid., p. 19.
42 ‘Shokol chizer dor prokashiya bole/Paat Becha kaley haat kaporer toley/Paat becha shesh holey dey torey roka/Bichar koriya dekho tumi koto boka’, ibid., p. 50.
43 ‘Prithibitey hoy beshi murgi aar hash/Ei dui cheez kore dhormo-kormo nash’, ibid., p. 24.
44 ‘Iaha shuney dokandar shemanatey boshey/Tarpor aorotera dim liya ashey/Eshe tara dekho bhai kiba kam korey/Char poyshar dimey chay der poysha dam/Dokandar taha shuney poyshay dui koy/Nari lokey boley tobey na dibo tomay/Akherey she dokandar hoye gelo raji/Dim guney dey tarey joto nari paji’, ibid., p. 25.
45 ‘Daladali chacha o bhatija koto kore maramari/Mamu o bhaginar koto hobe foujdari’, Rahim, Nur-ul-Islam, p. 12.
46 Sen, A., Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982, particularly Chapter 6, pp. 52–86 Google Scholar.
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51 Ranajit Guha's analysis of the ‘elementary aspects of peasant insurgency’ is the most cogent statement of the subalternist view of an autonomous domain. Guha, R., Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1983 Google Scholar.